Pull Down the World
by Yakaji
Summary: He was Aizen's most trusted lieutenant. His betrayal brought Soul Society to its knees. What path took him from the slums of Rukongai to the peak of Seireitei? [GinRan] Spoilers up to current JUMP releases.
1. Prelude

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**Pull Down the World**

_Prelude_

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Moonlight spilled through the courtyard like liquid mercury, leaving a brilliant shine on the marble benches and walkways. Rangiku pressed her left hand to her stomach, trying to staunch the bleeding. Her right hand clenched the cord-wrapped hilt of Haineko. She coughed, and the sharp metallic taste of blood was strong in her mouth. _A little longer. Please, just a little longer._

To her right, one of those marble benches was ripped in two, its halves now skewed awkwardly. The unconscious form of her captain, Hitsugaya Toushirou, was sprawled in the depression where the massive stone slab had cracked and tumbled. She prayed he was merely unconscious. But his left arm was resting at an impossible angle, and Rangiku feared he might be worse off than she herself.

She could hear shouts from elsewhere in Seireitei. No, not shouts, she amended. Screams.

Standing not ten meters away, squatting on the broken remains of a fountain that still gurgled feebly, was the man who had caused all this. The man she blamed for all the fear, the pain, the horror she had felt in the last two years. The man that had held her trust, and her heart, and shattered them as heedlessly as he now shattered Soul Society itself.

A tear rolled down her cheek, and she hated herself for it. Everything she loved, everything she knew, was being destroyed by this man. But the tear wasn't for Soul Society, or for the Shinigami lying dead in the courtyard around her. The tear formed, and fell, for him.

Ichimaru Gin.

He perched, raptor-like, on a long spike of marble that slanted out from the ruinous mass of the fountain. His Shinigami uniform was still visible beneath a closed white coat. Not the coat of a Shinigami captain, not any longer. The coat of an Arankar. His face was a mask, but he wore no smile. That smile, the cold smile he wore every moment of the day…. Rangiku trembled at the memory, but not in fear, or anger. She had not seen that smile since the day he first left her, so many years ago. The day he abandoned her in that Rukongai hovel, that mass of bundled twigs that had served as their home, during the one time in her life Rangiku had been truly happy.

Ichimaru Gin did not smile at Matsumoto Rangiku.

"Whatsa matter, Rangiku? Aren'cha happy to see me again?" His voice was soft, almost gentle, the same voice she remembered from so many years ago.

"You bastard," she wanted to say. "You betrayed everything I knew and loved. You maimed my captain and killed my friends. You destroyed my home. You took away the only thing I ever cared about. You took away Ichimaru Gin. I don't know who you are anymore, you bastard."

She said nothing.

Another tear, slipping down her other cheek. Another stab of shame, of longing fused with self-loathing. Rangiku felt her throat tightening, felt sobs drifting up from her chest like bubbles rising through tar. She couldn't bear it. She couldn't bear to let him see her cry.

All she wanted now was release. She wanted the pain to end, wanted it more than she had ever wanted anything. She couldn't live like this. He had destroyed her so completely she knew she could never recover. She had loved him. She had loved him with every strand of her soul. And he had never even noticed.

Raising Haineko before her, Rangiku lurched forward. She was no match for Gin. She had never been. But maybe, just maybe, he would take pity on her and kill her. Maybe he would hold her then, and she would die wrapped in his arms. Maybe she would be able to say the words that had always eluded her before.

She waited for him to reach for Shinsou, to cut her to ribbons. She waited for the first moments of death, the fiery agony that would let her know all the other pain was ending. But he waited, too. Ichimaru Gin was as still as the corpses around him. And then she was splashing through the ruins of the fountain, no more than a meter away from him. Death would come now, and so fast she would hardly have time to notice it.

Haineko slid smoothly into Ichimaru Gin's chest, and blood welled up, staining his white coat a deep crimson.

And then she could hold back the tears no longer. Wet sobs wracked her body. She shook, like a leaf caught in a late autumn breeze. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. She tried to force words. "Why, Gin? Why didn't you kill me?"

Ichimaru Gin's eyes flew open, and for the third time in her life, Matsumoto Rangiku found herself staring into those beautiful, crimson irises, like wells that trapped her heart.

He moved slowly, so slowly it seemed as if he was forcing his way through water, and his hand came to rest on the back of her head. He smoothed her hair with a gentle caress. "You really don't understand, Rangiku…." His voice was filled with a mix of shock and pain. "How could I kill you? Everything you see, I did it for you." His voice was becoming weak, hollow. "I did it all for you. I…" His lips fell closed, twisting upward in that deadly smile she knew so well. But in his eyes, she saw no hint of malice, just a spark of….

The eyes of Ichimaru Gin slid shut as he toppled backwards into the marble-strewn fountain bed, Haineko still jutting from his chest, and Matsumoto Rangiku knew, with exacting precision, how much pain a soul could take before it shattered.

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Author's Note: I don't own Bleach; that honor belongs to Kubo Tite. Also, this is my first attempt at an angst fic, so be gentle! I intend this to be a fairly serious work, but chapters (at least the first couple) may wind up being short-ish (1000 words) rather than the long ones I've used for other narrative fics. I apologise for the shortness. Hopefully you'll find this story to be worth it, nonetheless. 


	2. Rice Crackers

Author's note: This chapter takes some small liberties with the first meeting between Matsumoto and Ichimaru. I didn't have the manga handy when I was writing, sorry. Most of the differences are minor things like what is and isn't present in the background of the scene, etc. I'm blowing one page of manga into a 1000-odd word story here (giving literal credence, I suppose, to the old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words), so afford me a bit of dramatic license. Finally, I don't own Bleach; that honor belongs to Kubo Tite. Also, this is my first attempt at an angst fic, so be gentle!Again, I apologise for the shortness of these early pieces. Hopefully I'll get toward a more normal, longer length later.

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**Pull Down the World**

_Chapter 1 - Rice Crackers_

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There was a girl. 

She was lying face-down on open, sun-parched ground, little better than desert sand, so hot it made Gin shift his balance from one leg to the other, to keep from burning the unprotected soles of his eight-year-old feet. Her eyes were closed, and her breath came in long, slow draws. How she could stand to sleep on that ground, he didn't understand. Gin didn't even like going outside during the daytime.

She had pretty golden hair.

Her clothes were a mess, though, as if she had been playing in the dirt all day. And the rest of her didn't seem much better. The girl's skin was caked over with dust. That pretty golden hair was a mass of snarls and burrs. And Gin couldn't get by the fact that she was sleeping, on the ground, in the middle of the hottest part of the day. She was weird. Weird, as all girls were weird, of course. But she was especially weird. Gin was sure of it.

He squatted down beside her to get a closer look. Her tangled hair had spilled over much of her face, hiding it from view. Gin reached down and smoothed it back with a gentle touch, revealing cracked lips, and cheeks and forehead marred by scratches. But she had a nice face, even so. Gin couldn't help himself; he smiled. The girl looked so pretty lying there, asleep. He wished he knew her name, but he didn't want to ask. It would be rude to wake her.

Sighing, Gin resolved to wait for her to wake on her own. Today was especially hot, but... There was something about this girl that made him curious. He could stand the heat for a couple hours. He looked around for a patch of shade he could rest in, but no plants grew here. The best he could find was a small rock sticking up from the ground that created a shadow just large enough for him to put his feet in it without burning them on the sun-baked soil. He settled on his haunches and folded his arms over his knees, staring at her.

For the longest time, she didn't move. Then Gin heard a noise, maybe a faint sob, and noticed that the girl's lips were parted. Her eyes remained closed, though. She must still be asleep.

The heat was starting to bother Gin. _It's probably a bad dream, or something. Maybe it'd be okay if I wake her up, as long as she's having a bad dream. Maybe that'd be okay. _Straightening, he walked back to her and bent at the waist, petting the girl's hair. "Hey. Hey, you. It's okay, it's just a nightmare. C'mon, wake up..." Gin's voice held a note of pleading. The girl had begun to sob harder - he was sure they were sobs now - and Gin felt very uncomfortable listening to that sound.

Finally, the girl started to move. Her neck bent upward in short, creaky spasms until she could see Gin. Her eyes were big, azure disks, and he found himself falling into them. Gin opened his own crimson eyes to stare into hers for a few moments, before returning to the squint he had long ago developed to keep out the painful light of the sun.

"Who are you?" The girl's voice cracked liked dry parchment, and made Gin wonder when she'd last had anything to drink. Gin also heard an odd tone in her words, though he couldn't quite understand it. He wasn't sure what to call it either. Wonder, maybe?

"My name's Gin," he replied. "Ichimaru Gin. How 'bout you?" Finally, he got to ask the question that had made him wait out in the sun for all this time.

She stared for a moment. She seemed confused, as if talking to Gin like this was the strangest thing that had ever happened to her. After a while, she licked her lips and murmured, "Rangi... Rangiku. Matsu... moto Rangiku." She coughed, a dry sound, and her cough kicked up a cloud of dust around her face.

The girl's voice was very quiet, and Gin was having a hard time hearing her, so he squatted down again, right in front of her. "Where do you live, Rangiku?"

The girl forced herself up from the ground and struggled to her knees. She winced, more than once, and Gin wondered if she'd been hurt somehow. The thought made him... angry. He didn't understand why. She coughed again, and Gin winced. Listening to that cough was like listening to a boar struggling to climb a pile of slate stones. It grated on his ears and made him want to look away. But then, gathering her breath again, she spoke.

"I don't live anywhere."

The answer didn't make sense to Gin. He frowned, and said so. "That's stupid. Everybody lives somewhere."

The girl's eyes started to shine, and Gin realized she was about to cry.

"Hey, hey! Stop it! Don't cry..."

The girl nodded silently, and stared at her hands, folded in her lap. They both sat there for a moment, not saying a word, and then the girl's voice whispered through the blistering midday air. "Gin... Do you have any... food?" Red suffused the girl's cheeks, as if asking this simple question was the most embarrassing thing she had ever done.

Gin bit his tongue, thinking. Sure, he had a little food, but people didn't need to eat. Not except him, anyway. He didn't really understand why. But he had never given food to anyone else before. Except, this girl... Gin didn't know. Maybe she needed food too. Maybe she didn't, and she just wanted to taste it. Either way, Gin wanted to give it to her. It was stupid, but... Sighing, he reached around his back and fumbled at his belt. "Yeah, sure..." Resignation touched Gin's voice, but he extended the small bundle of rice crackers toward her.

She took them gingerly, cradling them in her hands like a precious treasure. She unwrapped the bundle and slowly placed one of the crackers in her mouth. She bit down, and a fit of coughing almost brought the cracker back out, but she drove a hand over her lips and, a few seconds later, began chewing again. Words came, around the remains of the cracker still in her mouth, and she sounded a little stronger now. "Gin. That's a funny name..."

He gave her crackers and she called him funny? Gin frowned slightly and his eyes dropped to the ground.

"No, no. That's not what I mean. I like it. It think it's... neat."

Gin looked up again, and saw the same red tinge filling the girl's cheeks. She looked so pretty like that. "You never answered my question, though, Rangiku. Where do you live?"

Her eyes went watery again, and Gin felt ashamed for asking, but this time the girl kept the tears in check. "Here, I guess. I don't have a house or anything. So... I live out here... I try to, anyways."

Gin felt sorry for her. He'd never met anyone without a house before. His own house was just a bunch of twigs he lashed together himself, four walls and a roof, but it was something, and it kept the sun out during the day. The words came before he really had a chance to think about them. "Do you wanna live with me, Rangiku?"

Oh, what did it matter? His house was too big, anyway.


	3. Expressions

Author's note: Again, this chapter may take some small liberties from canon, since I'm describing part of an event that happened in the manga. These should, however, be negligable. Also, I don't own Bleach; that honor belongs to Kubo Tite. It's another short one this time, just over 1000 words. I'm enjoying the snippets though. We'll see where this all goes.

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**Pull Down the World**

_Chapter 2 - Expressions_

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At the sound of his voice, Rangiku lifted her head. She had been restitching a seam on her dress, paying careful attention so she didn't prick her fingers on the needle, and she hadn't heard what he had said. 

"I asked," Gin repeated, "when your birthday was, Rangiku?"

She frowned in thought. When was it? It seemed many of the simple questions he asked her didn't have simple answers. "I… I really don't know, Gin. I don't really remember the days before I met you." Rangiku bit her lip, feeling a touch of apprehension. She ducked her head again, and rolled her eyes up to peer at him shyly. They had been living together for more than eleven months, and Rangiku felt happy for the first time in her life. But Gin was still a mystery to her. She was never sure how he might react to something. He never became angry with her; he was always kind, at least where she was concerned. But he found the oddest things funny, sometimes. And other times his face would cloud over in a dark mask, but directed at something beyond the walls of their tiny home.

This time, Gin met her response with silence. He folded his hand into a fist and used it to prop his chin. This was a pose Rangiku knew well. It meant he was thinking, planning. This was the look Gin wore just before he came up with some daring plan to pilfer more rice crackers, or occasionally snatch a bit of fruit from the Rukongai district marketplace. She didn't know what he was thinking about, but she had learned the best thing to do when Gin went quiet like this was just to leave him be until he was finished.

This time that finish came quickly, and a warm smile spread across his face, though his eyes remained in their perpetual squint. Rangiku hadn't seen him fully open his eyes once since the day they had met, though she still remembered their exact shade of crimson.

"I've got it," he said cheerily. "If you don't remember, why don't we just say your birthday is the same day we met?"

Rangiku blinked in surprise. "I… I guess… that would be a good birthday." She smiled, feeling a kind of warmth spread through her body at the thought. "Yeah, I'd like that, Gin."

The white-haired boy stood, and clapped his hands together. "Well, if it's gonna be your birthday so soon, we need to get'cha a birthday present! C'mon, stop playing with that dress. We'll go find you a new one." He grinned that crazy grin he always had and stretched out his hand toward her.

Rangiku hunched her shoulders and clung to the dress she was mending. "But… Gin… Where could we find a new dress? And how would you get it, even if we did?" He had crazy notions like this all the time. Somehow, they all seemed to work out in the end, but Rangiku was still nervous. She didn't want to get in trouble. She didn't want -him- to get in trouble because of her.

"You worry too much, Rangiku." Gin frowned in mock-disappointment and gave his hand a little shake. "Get up already! If you don't help me look, I'll probably get'cha some ugly green thing with lace and frills. You know I can't tell one dress from another. Now what sort of birthday present would that be?"

She laughed and, setting the needlework aside, reached out to take his hand. He pulled gently, and Rangiku wobbled to her feet. They hadn't had anything to eat in a few days, and her knees felt a little weak. Gin looked as strong as if he'd just eaten a full meal a few hours ago, though.

She didn't let go of his hand for a few extra moments. He didn't seem to mind.

They walked to the door of the little room. There was a real entryway now, lower than the rest of the floor. Rangiku had worked for a week, helping Gin gather all the branches necessary to make a new, raised floor for their home. All the work had exhausted her; it had even tired Gin. But she was very proud of it, now that it was done. She felt like there was a part of herself in the house now. It really was home.

Sitting on the edge of the room's raised floor, she let her feet dangle down and tugged on a pair of ratty wooden sandals, their edges long since decayed into a tangle of splinters. They weren't very comfortable, but they were shoes. Gin had made them for her, and another pair for himself, about a month after they had met. She treasured them. They kept her feet off the sun-cracked ground, and they stopped her from getting cut on the sharp rocks buried in the soil. If she found a sliver of wood buried in her foot from time to time, it was a small enough price to pay.

He had his own sandals on quickly, and was watching her. When Rangiku looked up, Gin pulled open the door and offered her his hand once again. She accepted it gratefully, and that same warm feeling washed through her. When she stood, she thought her knees even felt a little less shaky. She tightened her grip on his hand.

He turned his head and looked at her. His face was more a mask than ever. His mouth had constricted into a small line, and his squinted eyes seemed turned down. This was an expression she hadn't seen before, and Rangiku's heart fluttered anxiously, wondering if he was upset. She relaxed her hand and tried to pull it away, retreating back a step.

In response, Gin's hand tightened on her own, not painful but not letting her leave either. He turned back toward the door and gave a little tug to her. She stepped back to his side and Rangiku found that she was squinting herself as they tramped out into the blazing sunlight.

They walked all the way to the district marketplace without saying a word.


	4. Hunger

Author's note:From here on in, this is clearly my world. I doubt the truth of Gin x Rangiku is going to conform to what I'm writing, but what can I say, I like my idea. Technically nothing here is AU at the time of writing, but it will probably become that way later. As always, I don't own Bleach;Kubo Tite does. This time the story's going a bit longer. You've all gotten used to the short chapters now though, so I decided to break this particular section into two parts. The next part will pick up right where this one stops. Hopefully it'll be out in the not-too-distant future.

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**Pull Down the World**

_Chapter 3 - Part I - Hunger_

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Ichimaru Gin understood the Hunger, now. 

At first, he had been content to accept that it was his peculiar problem. There were people whose legs didn't work right. There were people who couldn't see or couldn't talk. Ichimaru Gin was hungry. That was just the way of the world. But then, he had met Rangiku. Rangiku was everything he wasn't. She was innocent. She was kind and affectionate, and she wasn't afraid to show her feelings. She was happy. She was everything he wasn't, but she shared the same hunger that had cursed him for as long as he could remember.

It was a puzzle, and Gin liked puzzles. But it was the toughest puzzle he'd ever faced. He'd spent years now, trying to put all the pieces in place. But it was difficult to even FIND the pieces. Whenever he was in town without Rangiku, he asked questions. He watched people.

Seven years had passed, now. Seven years since he first met Rangiku, lying in the sun-scorched dust. And in all that time, he had only been able to find three other souls in Ishibana, Rukongai's West District 79 who shared the same hunger he and Rangiku felt.

One was a boy even younger than Gin. He had been the first. Gin had found him only a few months after beginning the search. The boy's name had been Kuramoto Idachi. He was lucky, he had been taken in by a family of other boys and girls. A kid Idachi's age could have a hard time taking care of himself. Idachi had been the easiest to find, of the three. He was still innocent enough that he'd talk openly with Gin. Gin had visited Idachi often on his trips into town, and they had become something like friends. The littler boy could be annoying sometimes, but he was an important piece of the puzzle. If it meant understanding Rangiku better, Gin could put up with some mild annoyance.

The next, he hadn't found for another four years. Imada Mayuko had been an old woman, and secretive. She lived by herself in a squat house on the edge of the marketplace. Her windows were always closed, and she often went days without venturing outside. People talked about her, though. Shopkeepers, especially. Every time she left her house, she would go round to the food carts in the marketplace. The shopkeepers claimed she had a cold, hunted look in her eyes whenever they dealt with her, and she was constantly looking over her shoulder. Even after Gin targeted her as a possible piece of his puzzle, it took another five months before he found an opportunity to confront her.

_Gin had left the home he shared with Rangiku early one autumn morning. The shopkeepers had told him the day before that Mayuko had been locked away for almost ten days, which was uncommonly long for her. Gin had hoped to see her that day, and planned to be back by sunset. Rangiku wouldn't worry too much if he disappeared for only a day. It happened often enough, and Gin always made sure to come back with something special for her. But it had taken almost a full week of watching Mayuko's house before Gin saw her come out._

_It was still three hours from dawn when the door of the house slid open. The sky overhead was filled with stars, but there was no moon to light the empty street. Gin hardly noticed the noise from the house. He was so tired that his eyes threatened to close on him at any moment. But he turned to look, anyway. He expected a cat, perhaps, or something knocked over by the wind. Instead, it was Mayuko._

_The woman was ancient. She wore a shapeless black robe, dark as the night itself. Long silver hair framed a face that might have been beautiful once. Now, wrinkles played across her skin like cracks in sun-baked soil. She turned toward Gin and marched straight at him. He stood, hastily, from where he squatted beside a run-down bakery. But the woman was surprisingly quick. She thrust out a hand toward his neck, and pinned him against the wall of the building. The woman bent her head close, her voice emerging as a crackling hiss. "What is it you want with me, boy?" Her eyes flared like wild flames. "You've been watching my house for six days now. Are you with Them?"_

_Gin blinked in confusion. In the seconds it took to find his voice, he was sure the old woman would strangle him. "I-... I heard yo- you get hungry." The words sounded senseless, but it was all Gin could think to say._

_The crone's hand pressed harder, threatening to cut off Gin's windpipe. "And what if I do?" Threat was plain in her tone._

_"I do too. So does my-" Gin had to fight for the breath to form words. The old woman's hand held him like a vise, and for the first time in his life Gin felt genuinely frightened. "So does my friend. I want to know why."_

_Mayuko stared at him for a full minute, not relaxing her grip. Her eyes showed no emotion now, just an icy coldness. She paused, and then spoke again in a grating whisper. "No, boy. You do not want to know why. You'd do better to forget you ever saw me. Forget your friend too. You'd both be safer that way. And for God's sake, boy, don't talk to anyone about hunger!" She drove her hand against Gin's throat, and he doubled over, gagging and fighting for air. When he came back to himself, Gin looked up, but the woman had disappeared again._

That had been the last Gin saw of Mayuko. He inquired discretely the next time he was in town with Rangiku - Rangiku had been upset by his long disappearance, and no amount of presents seemed to fix that, so they went everywhere together for the following months. The house had been sold, just days after Gin's encounter. No one knew what had become of the old woman. But from then on, Gin had been much more discrete, both in his inquiries and in his observations.

Idachi had died shortly thereafter. The circumstances were perfectly commonplace. His family was not well-off. No one in the 79th District was well-off. But Idachi's family had slowly been buying less and less food, as their resources had dwindled. They knew about Idachi's hunger, but they didn't really understand it. Gradually, Idachi had weakened until he was hardly able to rise from his bed. The family had worried more, then. Idachi's siblings had worked to get more food for him. Even Gin had brought what meager portions he could spare from what he procured for Rangiku and himself. But it was too little, and too late. The boy fell sick during that winter, and he had been too weak to recover. Just after the new year, Gin and Rangiku had both come to help his family bury him.

The third, Gin found only eight months ago. In his own way, the man had been just as strange as Mayuko. He wasn't native to Ishibana. He was a refugee, like so many others, fleeing from one district to the next, hoping to outrun something. Only the most desperate refugees came out to the 79th District. There were poorer and more violent places in Rukongai, but not many. The town in Ishibana was a dangerous place for anyone to live, but even more so for outsiders. Still, a man in dust-stained robes begging on the street was no uncommon sight. But this man was uncommonly focused on food, and his clothes had the look of once-fine things, now worn almost paper thin.

Gin had never forgotten his encounter with the crone Mayuko. He was careful about showing too much interest in the refugee. He and Rangiku were slowly becoming better-off themselves, though. Living away from the town, they could hunt for their own food. And despite Gin's early protests, Rangiku had continued sewing. Now, she even made clothes that Gin could bring to town to sell. Gin began giving coins to the refugee now and again, and over the course of the last few months, the man had begun to open up.

The only name he offered was Yusuke, and he was very reticent to talk at first. But gradually, Gin had begun to get some information from him. He had lived in the 38th District of West Rukongai for most of his life. Gin wasn't clear on what Yusuke had done there, but apparently he had been successful at it. Yusuke did mention the name of a man he worked with, Urahara Satoru, and said he was a research specialist of some sort, but would say no more beyond that. Gin tried hinting at the hunger a few times, but Yusuke never took the bait until Gin stated frankly that he shared the man's condition.

That statement had caused a dramatic change in Yusuke. Thereafter, the man remained as reticent as ever, but he kept hinting at something as if Gin should understand him. He talked about the "other side" of the hunger, what he called the Gift, and it became clear that this Gift had been a crucial part of the work Yusuke had done in District 38. Gin gathered, gradually, that this Gift was also an important part of why Yusuke had fled, away from Seireitei and the central court, out to Gin's own District 79.

Gin had gone into town today, intent on asking Yusuke to explain. To explain the Hunger, to explain this Gift, and to explain why he and Mayuko seemed so afraid of talking about these things. He had slipped out again, early in the morning before Rangiku was awake. It was just a visit to the town, no elaborate stakeout like he had done with Mayuko. Gin only meant to ask this third soul, the refugee Yusuke, a few questions. He would finally be able to get the answers he wanted, the last pieces of the puzzle he'd been trying to assemble since the day he had met Rangiku. He would come back tonight, and surprise her with that, with a story. Rangiku loved it when Gin told her stories. And this story would be better than all the others, because it would be true, and it would be about the two of them.

But when Gin reached the town, Yusuke wasn't in any of his usual begging spots. He wasn't anywhere, as far as Gin could tell, and Gin didn't want to make his curiosity too plain after all the secrecy both Mayuko and Yusuke had shown. Gin had wandered the town for nearly two hours, searching for the refugee.

It was noon, when Gin finally discovered him. The sun was pounding down again, and Gin's eyes were squinted even more than normal to keep out the blinding light. He had wandered into a small alley near the outskirts of the town. Two tall houses rose on either side of the narrow enclosure, leaving it pleasantly shady between them.

Sitting against the side of one of the buildings, Gin noticed a man. The figure was dressed in a dusty tan traveling cloak, now tattered along the edges. His head lolled forward, as if asleep, and the cloak's hood was pulled up to cover him. Strangers were dangerous in Ishibana, but Gin felt an odd sort of resonance with the man, a sensation he was starting to recognize when he talked to Yusuke, and occasionally Rangiku as well. Gin suspected the feeling had something to do with the Hunger. He walked toward the man, calling out while he was still a few meters away, so as not to alarm him. The tan-cloaked figure didn't respond. Gin stepped closer, slowing his steps. Still no reaction from the other man. Finally, Gin stopped directly in front of the man and squatted down to look beneath his hood.

A part of Gin already knew that the man was Yusuke, but his breath caught in his throat nonetheless when his eyes confirmed this fact. The refugee wasn't dead, as Gin had begun to fear. But it appeared that he would be, soon. Yusuke's eyes flickered as he faded in and out of consciousness. There were no visible wounds on his body, but Gin could somehow sense the life draining away from him. Gin shook him, willing him to wake and explain what had happened, but the refugee was too far gone, just as Idachi had been when Gin came to him at the end. Yusuke, the refugee. The third Gin had found, and the third he had lost as well.

Gin waited with the man, sadly. There was nothing he could do now, but at least he could be there. Perhaps the older man would notice, somehow. Perhaps it would count for something with him. A tear rolled down Gin's cheek.

As the light faded from Yusuke's eyes, Gin stood and strode back into the town. There was nothing to do for him now. Yusuke was a refugee, and refugees died often in Ishibana. Yet suspicion nagged at him. Yusuke had been healthy the last time Gin had seen him. And ever since he left District 38, Yusuke had been running from someone, from something. He had always been running. Why?

As Gin approached the marketplace at the center of town, that resonance he had felt with Yusuke returned, but much stronger now. Gin stopped, instinctively, and the woman walking behind him bumped him roughly. She hurried around, but turned her head to spit at his shoes and shout a curse at him. Gin didn't notice. He was busy scanning the crowd, trying to find the source of the resonance.

And then he understood. He saw them striding toward him, talking with one another. There were three, all tall and clean-cut. He had heard stories of them, he had even told those stories to Rangiku, but he had never seen them before in his life.

The last piece of Rangiku's puzzle clicked into place, but beyond it Gin found a whole new puzzle, infinitely larger, arrayed before him.

One of the three, a thin man with dark hair pulled back in a pony-tail, noticed Gin's stare. He looked down at the boy and gave a condescending laugh. "Oh... po' kid. Whatsamatta? Y'got a problem wit' Shinigami?"


	5. Gift

Author's note: Finally, the back half of my third chapter. They'll probably start coming in the longer portions from here on out, which also means they'll probably come a bit slower. Sorry! Also, a quick translation or, in this case, UNtranslation note. I live in Japan, I read Bleach in raw Japanese. There are certain words that just don't translate well in my mind, and you'll find that I use them consistently in their Japanese form. The ones worth mentioning here are _shinigami_, which some of you may have seen translated elsewhere as "Death God"; _reiatsu_, which translates to something like "spiritual pressure" and just signifies the metaphysical force brought to bear by a shinigami, or by various other beings; and _Seireitei_, the Court of Pure Souls at the center of Soul Society. Hopefully those are the only hangups you might be having. If there are any others, feel free to let me know and I'll make sure to explain the terminology in future installments.

* * *

**Pull Down the World**

_Chapter 3 - Part II - Gift_

* * *

"Oh, po' kid. Whatsamatta? Y'got a problem wit' Shinigami?" The black-clad man carried his sword unsheathed, propped against his shoulder. An ice-cold smile curled his lips as he stared down at Gin. His eyes were violent. Predatory. 

Gin hated him.

"C'mon, Itsuka, leave the kid alone..." The red-haired shinigami on the left glanced around the street nervously as he whined. "I don't know why you dragged us all the way out here, but it wasn't 'cause you wanted to pick on some little brat."

Itsuka's head snapped around, his long black ponytail snaking through the air. "Wha's that, Hayashi? Sounds like you ain't havin' no fun yet." The red-haired man seemed to shrink under Itsuka's gaze. "Then how 'bout we make ou'selves a lit'le game? Lit'le chase, like. Y'been whinin' all day an' it's makin' me tired." Itsuka paused a moment, pressing his fingers against his temple as if fighting off a headache. "Here's the rules. M'gonna have some fun wit'dis kid, Hayashi. Jus'cause you seem to like 'im n'all. You, you gonna' get back to Seireitei faster'n I can blink. 'cause when I get done wit' the kid, 'f I see you anywhere in Rukongai, m'gonna kill you m'self."

Hayashi laughed nervously. "Hey, Itsuka... settle down now. I didn't mean anything by it; you can have your fun if you want. We'll just, you know... we'll wait around for you, okay?" Hayashi's hand stretched forward to pat the black-haired shinigami's shoulder.

Sighing, Itsuka bent his head and raised his left hand to his brow. "Y'know, Hayashi, yer a real piece o'work. Dunno how y'slipped through that academy." Itsuka's right hand tightened around the hilt of his sword, and in the blink of an eye, he thrust it through the other shinigami's shoulder. "Yer like a fuckin' human, Hayashi. All meat, no soul." Blood welled from the wound, trickling down Itsuka's blade.

Hayashi stood frozen, his eyes growing larger by the moment. His mouth was open as if to scream, but he couldn't seem to find his voice. Gin's ears caught a high-pitched wheeze coming from the other man. Tears welled in his eyes even as his blood soaked through into his shinigami uniform, leaving a dark stain.

Itsuka tugged the sword out and gave it a sharp flick to clean off most of the blood. He stepped forward and grabbed Hayashi's kimono roughly. "What'd I say, Hayashi? We got ou'selves a game. Now right now, yer not doin' so good. If y'run real fast though, right now, maybe y'get to live." Itsuka shoved hard enough to make Hayashi fall over. Hayashi crabbed back a few steps before jerking to his feet and dashing away.

"Was that really necessary, Itsuka?" The third shinigami, a towering man with small, circular glasses, had been silent until now. Itsuka spun angrily, preparing to swing the sword again, but the other shinigami stood firm without so much as a blink. "I dislike him as much as you do, but you know Hayashi will go straight to the Captain for this. You're in enough trouble over the whole Terada Yusuke incident. I assume you sorted that out while Hayashi and I were making the rounds?"

Itsuka grumbled under his breath as he swung his sword back to his shoulder. "Yea, Vice-Cap'n, I dealt wit' it. Terada won' be makin' anymore trouble. Wish I could say the same o' that Urahara, but he ain't no easy mark. Yusuke talked 'fore I was done wit' him, though. Said there's another one of 'em 'round here. Din't get no name. But if you'n' Hayashi did yer job, we aut'ta be good. If they ain't got food, they ain't got... Hey, Vice-Captain, what happened t' that kid?"

* * *

Gin huddled against a wall two streets away. When the tall shinigami had begun talking, Gin had taken the chance to escape. If the one with the black hair and the ponytail, that Itsuka, was so quick to stab his own comrade, Gin didn't want to be anywhere near him. Not to mention the other things he had overheard. 

Terada Yusuke.

Gin had never learned Yusuke's family name, but it was too much to think this was all coincidence. Yusuke was dead, murdered, and three shinigami in the West 79th District, the first shinigami Gin had ever seen, were talking about a man who shared the same name. And Yusuke had been on the run from someone, though he had never said who. On the run for the same reason as Mayuko. On the run because of something they shared, because of something Gin and Rangiku shared too. The Hunger. And the Gift that Yusuke had mentioned, whatever that was.

And whatever it was, Gin could tell now that the shinigami shared it too. He had felt some sort of resonance from them. From all three of them.

Gin's mind wanted to work through the problem. He had so many new pieces to fit into his puzzle, but there was no time. For all he knew, the remaining shinigami might be looking for him. And in his search for Yusuke, Gin had neglected his other reason for coming to the district township. Gin and Rangiku were almost out of food. They had enough to last a few more days, maybe a week if their snares had caught a rabbit or two. But rabbits had been scarce for the last few months, and Gin wasn't holding out hope that he and Rangiku would be able to find much food in the wilds where they lived, not in the heat of the deep summer.

Normally, buying food was a routine job. All of the sellers knew Gin well, and they knew he had coin. Thanks to Rangiku's dresses, Gin hadn't had to steal food for the last two years. But with shinigami in town, shinigami that might be looking for him, the task became harder. Gin avoided the central marketplace, opting instead to buy from the shops in the backstreets. Most of these shops served a wealthier clientele, wealthier by Ishibana standards anyway. The food they sold was better, but Gin only came to these stores when he was buying a special treat for Rangiku.

The closest shop was only a few blocks away. Gin rose and crept quietly through the back alleys, pausing at each intersection to make sure there was no sign of the shinigami. Silently, he stole from building to building in the afternoon haze. Gin suspected he looked as suspicious as any thief, but there were thieves enough in Ishibana that the few people who caught sight of Gin paid him no mind.

Finally, Gin drew to a halt in front of a well-built two-story structure. The building had no windows, and no signs to distinguish it from any normal house. Inside, though, was the best fruit-seller in the district. The owner, a Mr. Kishimoto, had grown up in the 62nd District until troubles with his family had forced him to leave. He still had contacts with many of his old friends, however, and those contacts helped him bring in fruit from all over Rukongai. The fruit was often damaged, occasionally rotten: the sort of fruit no one would buy outside the outermost districts. But even so, Mr. Kishimoto's shop sold every fruit Gin had ever heard of, as well as many that he hadn't. There were strawberries, kiwis, papayas, dragonfruit, and more... Odd little fruits shaped like cherries, but with a scaly skin that had to be peeled away. Giant yellow bulb-shaped fruits that tasted so sour they made Rangiku's face screw up in a grimace the one time Gin had brought her one. Mr. Kishimoto's shop was always full, stocked with more fruits than Gin could possibly imagine.

Gin glanced around the street one last time and slid the door open. He stepped inside, and felt all expression drain away from his face.

Mr. Kishimoto sat at a polished counter near the back of the room, a smile brightening his round face. Around him stood an array of empty tables. Gin had never seen one empty table in his store before, and now every table was barren.

The owner stood and walked out from behind the counter. "Gin, my boy! Looking for something for your young lady? I'm sorry, but we're fresh out for once." Mr. Kishimoto chuckled good-naturedly. "Some… men from out of town stopped in this morning. We had a nice, long chat." Another chuckle, though this one sounded more nervous. "They bought all the fruit I had. All of it! Can you believe that? And I'm not expecting any more for nearly a month."

Gin felt his head spinning. No coincidence. "They bought… all of it? These men… Mr. Kishimoto, did they say why they wanted it all?"

The shopkeeper shook his head. "They just said they needed it. All the fruit I had for sale, and anything I had left in the stock room. They offered a good price for it all. A lot of the fruit I sell goes bad on me before anyone can buy it anyway, so I was happy to take the money. I'm sorry, my boy. I'll bet you were really looking forward to finding a treat for your girl, too." Mr. Kishimoto gave Gin a reassuring pat on the back. "Well, I'm sure you can find something else for her. Hironobu just got a crate of music boxes from District 56. I hear they're a bit expensive, but you can probably afford one. Least if it's for her."

Gin nodded absently. "Yeah, she'd like…. Eh, thank you Mr. Kishimoto. I'll be going then. I suppose I'll see you in about a month." He slipped back out the door and slid it closed, ignoring the shopkeeper's farewell. His mind was on other things.

If the shinigami had been here, had they gone to all the other stores as well? It seemed impossible, and yet…. Shinigami came from Seireitei, from the court at the center of Rukongai. To them, the people who lived in Ishibana must seem like little more than insects. Buying all the food in this district town was probably as easy to them as swatting a fly. But why would they do it? The shinigami certainly didn't need rotting fruit from the outskirts of Rukongai.

Gin hurried down another series of backstreets, no longer taking the care to avoid watching eyes. There was a bakery he visited sometimes, too. Rangiku liked their pastries. But when he arrived, Gin found the shelves of the bakery just as barren as Mr. Kishimoto's tables had been. The owner was apologetic, and she seemed frightened as well. Gin asked if she would be able to bake him a couple loaves of bread that he could pick up on his way out of the city. She hesitated a moment. When her answer came, Gin felt his hope draining away.

"They bought all the ingredients too. I didn't really understand it, but the tall one…. He told me they wanted everything. Everything, or they'd just move on to another store. I couldn't say no. This is enough money to let me set up shop in a different district. A better district."

Everywhere Gin went, the story was always the same. Two men (none of the shopkeepers used the name shinigami, oddly), one with red hair and the other enormously tall with glasses, had come to the store and bought everything that could be eaten. More than half the shopkeepers talked about moving to a better district, and the ones that didn't were strangely closemouthed about when Gin might be able to come back to buy some food. Gin felt a gnawing panic rising in his stomach.

As the sun was setting behind the thatched roofs of the town, Gin found himself back in the central marketplace. The shinigami were gone now, it seemed. Gin had seen no trace of them during his hunt. They must have returned to Seireitei. A burly man stood behind a rough wooden counter, pulling shut the window of a stall that usually sold roasted rabbits. Today, the fires were cold. Not even embers glowed in the brick grills where the rabbits usually hung.

The man gave Gin a sorrowful look, and sighed. He stopped closing the shop to speak one last time. "You're one of them, boy. You've got the hunger. I know it, and there are others who know it too. Maybe you should leave. Get out of the district. Turn refugee with that girl of yours. You're resourceful, you could make it. But it ain't safe for you here anymore. Get lost, Gin. Get lost so nobody can ever find you."

With that, the window slammed shut, and Gin was staring at a plain wooden façade showing a picture of a skewer of roasted rabbit. It was over. The stores were all empty. Unbelievable as it might seem, there wasn't a single scrap of food for sale in all of Ishibana District. Oh, there was food still, but none of it for sale. Gin could go back to robbing houses for it, but even then, he could hardly get enough to feed himself and Rangiku. The rabbit-seller was right. It was time to leave.

Gin needed to see Rangiku. He needed to talk to her. For the first time in his life, he felt confused. None of this made sense to him. Why were shinigami stripping a Rukongai district of food, food the shinigami certainly didn't need? Why had they been hunting Yusuke? Why had they killed him? There were too many questions, and not enough answers. And Gin felt a cold dread that those answers he lacked might put him and Rangiku in danger.

Gin began a quick walk to the south end of the town. The walk gave way to a jog, and by the time he cleared the last houses, Gin was traveling at a run. The sun was a blazing red ball on his right, casting fiery shadows across the ground and turning the clouded sky a brilliant pink. Stunted trees flew past, and then scraggly pinion bushes when the land became too sere to support trees anymore. It took Gin the better part of an hour to reach the shack he shared with Rangiku, and his breath came in panting gasps by the time he finally arrived.

Rangiku was sitting outside in the last light of the setting sun, perched on a rock with the beginnings of a new dress arrayed in her lap. She smiled when she saw him, but her smile soon slipped into a look of worried consternation. "What is it, Gin? Is something wrong?" When he didn't answer, Rangiku set down her sewing and ran to him. Slipping his arm around her shoulders, she helped him into the shack where he could sit down.

Gin took nearly a full minute to regain his breath. He hadn't really thought about what to say to Rangiku while he ran, so he found himself at a loss for a moment. But when he opened his mouth, words just began spilling out in a confused rush. "I don't think it's safe for us here anymore, Rangiku. There's no food in town. None. They… it's all gone now. And they killed him. Yusuke. It's about the Hunger. There's something special about us. Something they don't want us to… We have to leave. We have to get out before it's too late."

Rangiku laid a cool hand against his forehead, frowning at him. "You're burning up, Gin. I can't believe you ran all the way here. What's wrong with you? You aren't making any sense." She sat down beside him and stared into his eyes.

Gin took a deep breath. His head was spinning, and he felt like he might throw up. He had run too hard. Gathering himself, he tried to force out the words to explain. "The Hunger, Rangiku. Don't you ever wonder why we get hungry, and not anyone else? Don't you ever wonder why we're different?" Rangiku nodded her head faintly, as if the topic was one she was still shy about. Gin continued. "We aren't the only ones. I've met others. You remember Idachi? He was like us. There was an old woman, too. And a refugee, Yusuke. He told me a lot of things. About the Hunger. But he said there's something else, there's a Gift that comes with it."

He was talking too much. Gin could feel his lungs struggling for air. His vision swam for a moment, and he gulped. Next to him, Rangiku was trying to puzzle through his story. The story Gin had always wanted to tell her, but now he was too scared to tell it the way it should be told. She didn't understand. Everything was all wrong.

"But you said there's no food. And you said he's dead. This Yusuke. Gin, I don't understand! What happened today?" Rangiku's words seemed to come from far away.

Gin could feel himself beginning to black out. He fought to stay conscious, to say just a few more words. "They came to the town today. Killed him, took the food. Three of them…." _The shinigami…._

* * *

When Gin awoke, it was night. He was wrapped in a light blanket, face up on the floor of the shack. Rangiku lay a few inches away, wrapped in her own blanket. Gin could just hear the quiet sound of her snoring. Outside, a chorus of crickets chirruped musically. 

Gin struggled to sit upright, careful not to disturb Rangiku beside him. He put a hand to his forehead and felt for his temperature. He was still hot. He must have been burning up after the run. The night air in the desert was cool though, even in summer, and it provided a welcome relief.

Gin glanced toward where Rangiku slept. In the darkness, he could only see her outline, the curvature of her body tucked beneath that blanket. A ragged sigh escaped from his lips. Everything he had waited so long to tell her, and it had gone so wrong. Had she understood any of it? There would be time, tomorrow. He could explain it then. But the image in his mind, the image of him telling her all about the Hunger they shared, the special Gift (or at least what little he knew from Yusuke); that fantasy was dead. And now Rangiku was probably worried close to tears over him. Rangiku always worried.

Gin felt a hollowness in his chest. It felt like when he had taken Rangiku swimming a year ago. They'd had to travel almost two whole days to get to the little lake, tucked in a crevice on the east edge of the desert. But it was the only time either of them had been swimming. Gin had tried jumping into the pool from a ledge a few meters above. The seconds he hung in the air, falling toward the water, that feeling of emptiness; that was what he felt now.

Gin was falling again, but he didn't know if there was water below to catch him.

A gust of wind howled past the little cabin, and the crickets fell silent. A moment later, their chirruping resumed. Rangiku's form became dimmer as a cloud scuttled in front of the moon and cut some of the faint light slipping into the shack.

Gin had probably been unconscious for a few hours. He still felt exhausted, but he didn't think he could go back to sleep. Not right now. Not until his thoughts settled down. Silently, he crept to the entrance of the shack and slipped on his sandals. With a last look at Rangiku, Gin pushed the door open and stepped out into the cool night air, pulling the door shut behind him.

The chirruping paused again at Gin's appearance, but only for a few seconds. Gin walked to the rock Rangiku had been sitting on when he came home. He was surprised to find scraps of cloth still lying there. Rangiku never left her sewing out. She must have been so worried about him that she forgot all about it. Carefully folding the cloth, Gin cleared it from the stone and sat down. He closed his eyes and sighed, trying to relax the tension in his mind. He took deep breaths of the cold air. The night smelled crisp, tangy like the scent of the pinion bushes that crowded the hills around the little shack. There was another scent, too. Like charcoal, or wood smoke. Probably some refugee wandering in the desert, trying to avoid the town. It happened often enough that the scent came as no surprise to Gin. Some nights it was there, some nights it wasn't.

Another gust of wind blew across the desert landscape, leaving silence in its wake. But this time, the crickets did not resume chirruping. Gin opened his eyes, though they remained in their slit-like squint. He turned his head slowly, and caught sight of movement on the far side of the shack. The refugee? Some desert refugees weren't above sneaking around under cover of night, looking to find others to rob. Gin had encountered that type before, but usually a little bluster would send them away. Refugees were happy to steal from sleeping victims, but they rarely wanted the trouble of someone who was already awake.

Gin looked closer at the figure. He was taller than Gin, but at fourteen years old, Gin still didn't have his full height. There was something else odd about him though. The shape of the man looked… familiar? And there was something trailing from the back of his head. It was hard for Gin to make out in the pale moonlight. Some sort of…. A ponytail.

Gin's breath caught in his throat. He knew who the man was: Itsuka, the shinigami from the town. And he was moving toward the shack. Moving toward the shack where Rangiku still lay sleeping.

Gin jumped to his feet, intentionally kicking a few pebbles to make noise. Maybe the shinigami didn't know about Rangiku. Maybe if Gin distracted him, he would leave Rangiku alone. Itsuka's head spun at the sound, and Gin could see him change the direction of his steps.

It wasn't enough. Fear gripped Gin's chest. If Rangiku woke up and heard, she would be as good as dead. She would come outside, and Itsuka would cut her down. Concern for his own life never entered into Gin's head. He had to lead the shinigami away from the shack, away from Rangiku. Gin turned and, fighting the fatigue in his legs, began to run.

Thoughts swirled through Gin's head. How had the shinigami found him? Had he followed Gin back from the town? If he had, why hadn't Itsuka attack immediately? -Could- Itsuka know about Rangiku? There were too many questions. Too many questions and still not any answers.

Gin heard the heavy steps of the shinigami crashing through the low brush behind him. He tried to run faster, but his legs felt like they were moving through water. Itsuka was closing the distance. He would catch Gin within the next two minutes, no longer.

Gin stumbled on through the dark,struggling for more speed. What was he going to do when the shinigami overtook him? Finally, concern for Gin's own safety filled him. The shinigami had threatened to beat him in the streets of the marketplace, before Gin had run away. The three shinigami had been distracted at the time, arguing with each other. Gin doubted any of them had paid him much attention. But if Itsuka was here, now…. Either he had chased Gin, simply because Gin had run. Itsuka seemed like that sort of man. Or else…. Or else it had something to do with the Hunger.

Suddenly, Gin burst into a small clearing in the pinion bushes. There was a little campfire in front of him, and a woman perhaps twice Gin's age sleeping beside it. She started awake as he crashed into her camp. Gin must have instinctively run toward the scent of the wood smoke. He needed help. But now that he was here, he couldn't let this woman get involved. She turned toward him, her eyes wide with fear and surprise. He opened his mouth to tell her to run.

The point of a sword erupted from the center of her chest. The woman tried to scream, but the sound became more of a gurgle as blood began spilling from her mouth. Behind her, rising up out of the darkness, Gin could see the form of Itsuka towering over her.

Itsuka ripped the sword backwards and flicked the blood away as the woman crumpled into a heap on her blankets. A dark red stain spread out through the cloth as it absorbed the blood pouring from her dying body. Itsuka gave a kick and knocked her out of the way so nothing stood between him and Gin. "There y'are, kid. I been lookin' fer you."

Gin turned, preparing to run back into the bushes, but a flash of movement passed on his left and he found himself staring up into the shinigami's face. Itsuka gave a kick that sent Gin sprawling in the dirt. Gin tried to stand, but Itsuka stomped on his chest forcing him back down. Gin's crimson eyes opened fully to stare at the man preparing to kill him. He fought for breath through lungs crushed under Itsuka's boot, but all he could manage was a weak croak.

"Why?"

Itsuka gave a deep laugh and lifted his foot, stepping back and bringing his sword down to point at Gin's chest. "Hey, kid. You got any idea how many Shinigami come from Rukongai? In a year? Maybe twenty, thirty. A thousand new shinigami every year, and thirty come from Rukongai. Now, ain't that somethin'." The shinigami lifted his hand to his chin and rubbed it thoughtfully, smiling to himself.

With a flick of his wrist, Itsuka made a small cut along the side of Gin's neck. "You got any idea how many cap'ns, how many vice-cap'ns, come from Rukongai, boy? Half. We got thousands o' shinigami, but they's as from Rukongai, they's the strong ones." The tip of the sword was pressed against Gin's breastbone now. As Itsuka walked forward, Gin was forced to scrabble back in the dust.

"You get what that means? Think about it, boy. Seireitei's a small lit'le place. Rukongai's huge. But only thirty shinigami from Rukongai. Why's that, d'you think?"

Itsuka seemed to be enjoying himself. Gin was more than happy to keep him talking. Every word brought another second for Gin. Maybe he could think of a way out, if he had enough time. "I don't know… Shinigami, they're all like us, aren't they? They all feel the Hunger. There must be more in Seireitei."

Itsuka lauged again, and the sound grated on Gin's ears. "Yeah, kid. Shinigami all got _reiatsu_. Even you got _reiatsu_. But there're just as many souls in Rukongai with _reiatsu_ as there are in Seireitei. But Seireitei, it ain't like Rukongai. We ain't got all the crime, all the poverty. We ain't got all these refugees. The royal family, the Chamber of 46, they see t' that. But what we do got, is walls. Walls for keepin' shit like you out. You ain't fit for Seireitei, boy. You n' all the other fuckin' meat out here.

"Why's there only thirty a year? 'cause them's all that make it OUT of Rukongai. The smartes', the fastes', the stronges'. The ones who get to eat, who don' starve. The ones who know better 'n to go against Seireitei. Them's the ones become shinigami. And them's the ones become cap'ns. We can' have shits like you runnin' around. If there's enough o' you, you might be a threat. We ain't lettin' no mob o' Rukongai trash break ever'thing we work for. So we keep you in yer place. Make sure you ain't no threat.

"We're the power in this world, boy. Us. Shinigami. 'n you ain't nothin' but meat."

Gin could feel the heat of the campfire against his back now. If he moved any closer, his shirt would catch on fire. Itsuka had stopped talking, though. A wide, cold grin split his face, and Gin knew he was about to die.

Images ran through his head. Not memories, regrets. Wishes. Dreams. And in each one of them, he saw the face of Rangiku staring back at him. Rangiku. A tear rolled across Gin's cheek. There was no way out. He was going to die. He was going to die and leave Rangiku alone to face a world full of Itsukas.

Itsuka drew back his sword to run Gin through. "Anyway, you ain't no matter anymore, kid. It's late n' I wanna get back home, tell the vice-cap'n I tied up the loose ends. You and that shit girl o'yers."

Gin felt something inside him snap.

Itsuka knew. He was going to kill Rangiku. Gin couldn't save her if he was dead. So it was imperative that Gin didn't die. He felt something burning inside him, a pressure filling his body. Gin didn't know what it was, but somehow he was aware of the same pressure inside the shinigami. The same pressure, only… smaller. Gin hadn't eaten for nearly two days, and suddenly the hunger inside him became sharper, stronger than he'd ever felt it before. But the fire raging in him was enough to let Gin shut out the hunger, at least for the moment.

He moved faster than he'd ever moved before, twisting out of the way as Itsuka's sword stabbed at the ground where he'd been lying. Gin reached behind him into the fire and had a vague awareness that the skin on his hand was burning. His fingers closed on a branch from a pinion bush, and he hurled it toward the shinigami.

Itsuka was too startled to dodge, and the flaming branch struck him across the bridge of the nose, sending sparks into his eyes. Reflexively, he brought his hands to his face, dropping the sword in the dirt. Gin lunged through the edge of the fire to reach it. His own eyes were blinded by the flames, but he managed to get a hand on the hilt of the sword.

Gin couldn't see. His eyes burned, and staring through the fire had ruined his night vision in any case. He could only hope that Itsuka was similarly blinded. Gin rolled to his feet, the sword dragging behind him. It was lighter than it had looked, but still heavy to Gin's hand. He had never held a sword before.

A noise from his right caught his attention, and then another from his left. Gin's head darted back and forth, trying to locate the shinigami, but his eyes continued to be useless and twisting his head only interfered with his hearing. A fist slammed into his stomach, knocking the air out of him and forcing him back. Gin caught himself in a crouch, his left hand supporting him against the ground while his right continued its grip on the sword.

The fiery pressure still filled Gin, and suddenly he noticed that he could feel the resonance of another pressure moving around him, trying to get behind him. The resonance. The same resonance he had felt with Rangiku, with Yusuke, with the shinigami. That resonance, that sensation of pressure must be centered on Itsuka.

Gin tried to relax his mind, force it to be silent. It didn't work. Stray thoughts kept floating through, mostly thoughts of Rangiku. But he gained enough control to follow Itsuka's movements. The shinigami was behind him now, pausing. Why was he waiting? Was he trying to find a weapon? Were Itsuka's own eyes still blinded? Gin heard mumbled words, and suddenly a blast of fiery heat shot past his shoulder.

Shuffling to the side, Gin nearly tripped over a rock lodged in the ground. The shinigami had other weapons than the sword. Gin couldn't afford to simply stand around. But if those weapons missed, it meant Itsuka probably couldn't see clearly yet. Gin still had a fair chance. He considered running for a moment, taking the shinigami's sword, but discarded the idea. The shinigami could still catch him. And if he ran, he would be leaving Rangiku alone. There was no way he could find the path back to the shack with his eyes in this state. No, Gin had Itsuka's sword, and Itsuka seemed just as blind as Gin, at least for the moment. Gin had to end this, now. He turned and charged in the direction of the resonance.

Gin knew there might have been better options for an attack, but he was trying to kill a man. That fact was so alien to him that he had a hard time thinking of ways to do it. He nearly fell as another rock caught his rough wooden sandal. He could feel the direction of the resonance shifting to the left. Gin didn't change course. Maybe if Itsuka thought he was out of the way, he would be off guard. At the last second, Gin spun counterclockwise, swinging the sword in a horizontal arc. It should have been a solid strike, but oddly the blade only seemed to scratch Itsuka. Was the shinigami farther away than Gin had thought? Gin didn't stop to ponder the question. He darted forward again, the burning pressure within speeding his steps. He stabbed forward, and felt the blade bite home. He didn't know where, though.

A fist slugged into Gin's shoulder, knocking him off balance as he pulled out the sword. Another fist connected with his torso, and Gin felt his ribs cracking from the force. He hunched down, lowering his center of balance, and rushed forward again. The sword stabbed, and Gin felt a flicker in the resonance. The pressure that marked Itsuka's location faded slightly. Gin pulled back and slammed the sword forward again. Again. Again. Blows rained down around his head, but Gin refused to let himself feel them. Again. Again. The blows were weakening, along with the resonance. Gin pulled back one last time and aimed a horizontal slash ahead of him. The sword bit deep with a liquid sound, and Gin could feel blood splashing onto his clothes. A heavy groan sounded in Gin's ear, and the form of the shinigami toppled onto him, knocking him to the ground.

Gin rolled away, still holding the sword. There was no more sound from Itsuka, and the resonance had faded so far that Gin could barely detect it. Gin scrabbled backwards in the dirt of the camp until he was a few meters from the body of Itsuka. He wasn't going to take any chances. He pulled his knees toward him and sat in a huddle facing the place he knew the shinigami laid. Gin's eyes were open, staring at a horror he could imagine even though sight was still denied to him.

He sat there for nearly two hours, vision returning slowly. It was almost dawn by the time he could see the broken, bloodied form of Itsuka lying face-down on the ground. All trace of the resonance had vanished now, and the pressure Gin had felt within himself had long since ebbed away. The biting hunger remained, though, and Gin thought if he didn't find some food soon, he might wind up starving just like Idachi had.

Struggling to his feet, Gin walked to the shinigami and kicked him onto his back. Gin's last slash had laid open the man's stomach. He bent down to wipe the blade of the sword on a dry spot of Itsuka's clothing, and was surprised to see how short the blade was. It hadn't looked nearly so short when Itsuka held it. The size seemed right for Gin's small frame, though.

He stopped for a moment, considering what to do. He wanted to return to Rangiku, to explain what had happened, to run away with her. But a part of him knew that he couldn't.

The shinigami had come to District 79. They had seen him. From what Itsuka had said, Gin was a loose end they wanted to tie up. Maybe Rangiku too. But something about the way Itsuka had talked made Gin think that only he had known about Rangiku. And Itsuka was dead.

So they wanted Gin now. That meant staying with Rangiku would put her in danger. And if he went back, he would stay with her. She wouldn't let him leave, and he wouldn't want to leave her. He wanted to return, more than anything in the world. But when the shinigami came hunting him again….

What options did that leave? He could turn refugee, running from district to district, trying not to be found. But they would find him, one day. He was sure of it. And the idea of living his life always on the run, always in fear, living his life like Yusuke; Gin couldn't endure a life like that.

Anger welled up in Gin again. Anger at his situation, anger at Itsuka's words. What sort of world was this, where a man tried to kill him so casually. Where he had to abandon Rangiku so she wouldn't be hunted by that man's comrades? It wasn't right. It made Gin want to scream. He couldn't allow it. He couldn't allow a world like that. For his sake, and for Rangiku's. She deserved something better. She deserved a life that didn't leave her worrying about starvation every week. She deserved a home that wasn't just a shack of twigs in the desert.

And suddenly, Gin understood. He understood what he had to do. He didn't know how to do it yet, but he knew where he had to go. He knew where to start. It seemed crazy, but… a grin spread across Gin's face, the grin he always wore when came up with a particularly interesting plan.

Reaching down, Gin untied the scabbard from Itsuka's belt. It seemed to shrink as he took it in hand, matching the size of the sword he held. Gin slid the blade back into the sheath and slipped it through the belt at his waist. That sword was his now. More than the sword. The path was clear. He looked down at the body of Itsuka one last time, a wide, cold grin masking his face.

"I'm the power in this world, shinigami. Me. 'n you ain't nothin' but meat."


	6. Into the Wilderness

* * *

**Pull Down the World**

_Chapter 4 - Into the Wilderness_

* * *

"I am alone." 

The words stung, but she forced herself to say them. "I am alone." For perhaps the thousandth time, and yet the bitter pain of loss never seemed to fade. Gin had disappeared, without a word, without a trace.

He had come back from the town panting and exhausted, half-mad and ranting about someone, about murder and death. Rangiku hadn't understood a word of it. And then Gin had collapsed. Rangiku remembered dragging him into the shack they shared, laying him on the floor. He had been so hot; it burned to touch his skin. Rangiku remembered crying, remembered tears streaming from her eyes as she stared down at Gin, sure he was going to die. Stupid Gin. Never thinking about himself. Never thinking about what she would do without him. Stupid, stupid Gin.

Rangiku had done everything she could think of. She had wetted towels to cool him off. She had fanned him, trying to take the heat away. She had cried. For long hours, she had cried, and he never twitched a muscle, until finally it was so dark that Rangiku couldn't see what she was doing. She was too exhausted to do more for him, so she made him a bed and rolled him on it. Then Rangiku had put herself to sleep, still crying, praying that when she woke he would still be with her.

And then she woke, and he was not. But not in the way she had feared. Gin wasn't dead. He was gone, with no sign of him to be found anywhere. Rangiku didn't understand.

She never understood Gin anyway, not really. But he had always been there for her. Always, since the day they met, since he offered her rice crackers under the desert sun. Always. And then, that morning, he wasn't.

She had known something was wrong. She had known it wasn't one of Gin's occasional disappearances. Not after the way he had come home, not after the fever she thought would kill him. But she tried to tell herself otherwise. Rangiku tried to pretend it was the same as any of his other trips. She waited a week. The last of the food ran out. She waited another week, hunting for scraps to keep her alive. And still, Gin didn't return.

Finally, Rangiku steeled herself to go into the town. To look for Gin. To look for food. Gin had said there was no food, but how could that be? An entire town with no food? It made no sense.

And yet he was right. Rangiku found nothing. No sign of Gin, no scrap of food. It was like a different world. Gin had always been with her before, in the town. Gin had always led the way for her. Without Gin, every one, every thing seemed... hostile. It was not the life she wanted.

So Rangiku had left. Her purpose had been so clear at first. To find Gin. She didn't know how, but she knew she had to. Rangiku couldn't endure solitude, couldn't endure a world centered on herself. She had never been alone before. There was the time before she met Gin, but... Rangiku had not understood what alone meant until she met Gin. Now she did. And so she had set out. To find Gin, and lose herself.

Or perhaps, part of her whispered, to lose Gin and find herself.

But Ichimaru Gin was like a jagged arrowhead piercing her heart. The pain of having him there was more than she could bear. The pain of trying to rip him out would surely kill her.

And yet...

"I am alone."

But she had nowhere to look. Gin had been gone for weeks. He could be anywhere. And he had seemed so frightened the last time he returned from the town, Rangiku could hardly imagine him returning there. Rangiku had no idea where he might be. And with no idea, no hope.

He must have fled from the shack. Rangiku knew that much. So she returned to the shack, the little shelter they had both called home for almost eight years. She searched, then. For any sign of Gin, for any hint of where he might have fled. But after weeks without looking, what traces could possibly remain? The hopelessness, the helplessness, blossomed inside her.

And then, unaccountably, she found something. A trail, leading through the scrub brush, away from the shack. It was faded, but still easy enough to spot. Someone had crashed through here, breaking branches of the pinion bushes. Gin? Rangiku couldn't be sure, but she did not know who else could have been here.

She followed the trail, climbing the hills east of the shack. She walked for more than an hour, watching for the traces of broken twigs, picking her way carefully between the bushes. Finally, the path opened onto a clearing, and a grisly sight that made Rangiku's stomach lurch.

The remains of a campfire sat in the center of the clearing, with two bodies lying beside it. Dead - there could be no question of that - with most of their flesh already eaten by vultures and jackals. What the scavengers couldn't get was being devoured by insects, even now.

Rangiku's heart froze as she took in the scene. "Gin?" The name was no more than a whisper.

Fighting her squeamishness, she walked toward one of the bodies, lying face-down near the firepit. The corpse was missing its arms. From bones lying nearby, Rangiku assumed they had been torn away while jackals fought over the body. She kicked it over, uncovering writhing patches of maggoty flesh. Rangiku put a hand to her mouth, struggling against the nausea that filled her. The face was inhuman, too rotted to be recognizable. But the form was too large, she realized. This was a grown man, far taller than Gin.

She stepped over the man's corpse gingerly, staring at the other body. It was in worse shape. The carrion-eaters had been even more thorough here. The head was ruined, crushed in by some overeager scavenger. The body looked like it had been dragged back and forth. scraping thin trails through the dry dirt of the campsite. It was splayed, though wholly unrecognizable. But the size... A sob caught in Rangiku's throat. The size was right. The height. It was Gin.

Rangiku fell to her knees. Horror filled her, but none of the squeamishness she had felt before. She wrapped her arms around the body and held it up, held it to her chest. Gin's body. Gin, who would never come back for her again. Gin, who would never again smile for her, who would never again tease her, who would never again open those brilliant red eyes.

Gin, who would never know that she loved him.

The thought brought a shiver, a cold that infused her bones. The thought was new to her, but she knew it to be true. Gin. She loved Gin. And she would never have a chance to tell him.

Broken sobs shook through Rangiku. Tears washed down her cheeks and fell, glittering, onto the body in her arms. She sat, cradling Gin's dessicated form, long into the night, until exhaustion overcame her and Rangiku fell to the ground, unconscious, a third body to join the two already there.

She woke to the sun beating down on her. She woke to pain. In her chest, where her heart should be. Gin was gone, and inside her where once she'd kept his memory, now there was nothing. She was empty. Hollow.

Something called to her. Not a voice, not anything she could put into words. There was simply a longing, a longing she had not felt since meeting Gin. It pulled at her, like a leash, like the strings on a puppet directing her every move.

It pulled her west.

She went, unresisting. Food was gone from her mind. Even the hunger seemed a faint thing, now. Day and night blurred together. She would walk until she collapsed, her limbs refusing to move. Sleep would claim her, for minutes or for hours. And when she woke, the longing would be waiting for her, stronger than ever before.

And through all that time, she had only one thought to keep her company.

"I am alone."

There was no one to hear her now, not here. No soul would wander this far from Rukongai, past the 80th district, past the outermost borders of Soul Society. Here the land turned sere and wild. Not even animals ventured this far. No creature would willingly abandon the security offered by Soul Society. No creature but Rangiku. The wilderness outside Rukongai was the place of Hollows.

She had crossed the border two days ago. She had known, somehow, the moment she left Rukongai. She had felt a pressure lifting, unbinding, a pressure that was as much a part her as her own skin. Rangiku had never known the pressure existed until it was gone. A part of her was free now, unlocked. Exposed. And now the longing came stronger than ever before.

The air was different here: raw, untamed. Wind whipped around her, tangling her hair and staining her clothing with dust. It whined in her ears and stung her nose with a bitter charcoal scent. The ground was rocky, stained in yellow and gray. Stone mesas rose around her, with twisted juniper bushes clinging to life in the shadows of their cliffs. But no other creatures, no sound but the howl of the wind. Still, she walked onward.

West.

As the red disk of the sun burned on the horizon, shivering the air into ripples with it's brutal heat, Rangiku came to a stop. South of her, a towering cliff curved inward. Rusty red granite arched overhead, eroded by millenia of wind into an inconceivable bridge, linking protrusions of the mesa above. Rangiku's legs gave out, dropping her roughly onto the desert floor. There was no energy left in her, no power to go on. She crumpled into a heap, panting for breath.

And noticed, gradually, that the longing was gone. She had arrived. Somewhere.

Gathering her strength, Rangiku crawled toward the recess in the cliff. It would provide some protection from the sun. Rangiku's skin was blistery red, burnt from days of exposure. The rocky sand cut into her forearms as she pulled herself forward, and she had to clench her teeth to keep from screaming. A part of her knew that she needed refuge, even the small refuge afforded by the cliff walls.

Past the arch the ground was cool, protected from the sun's scorching heat. The dark, scraggly green of juniper bushes hugged the base of the cliffs and stabbed into the bowl at the bottom. Rangiku pulled herself past the first ranks of bushes, blocking her view of the desert beyond the archway. She fell onto her back, and sharp rocks stabbed through the thin fabric of her clothes. She knew she would have bruises or worse, but she couldn't find the energy to care. The biting scent of the juniper bushes came to her nose, clouding her head as she stared upward. Cliff walls, of the same reddish stone as the arch, formed a giant circle overhead, framing the cloudless sky. Rangiku watched, gasping, as the sky faded to black, draining color from the cliffs.

A star peeked out, twinkling white, and then another. Another, and another. The sky resolved into a sparkling field of light, writ large across the sky, across the circle of Rangiku's vision. Her breathing calmed as she watched, entranced. The stars had been clear, beautiful in Rukongai, but not like this. Never like this. The night sky was so bright, alive with fire overhead. A wide band of white, the thickest concentration of stars, stretched across the sky like a river. It turned, so slowly she could barely notice. It spun around her head. She watched, too tired to do anything else.

The stars were so pretty. So white. They reminded her of Gin, somehow...

* * *

A snapping twig brought her awake with a gasp. Rangiku was still on her back, facing the stars overhead. The river of light had turned farther. She felt disoriented, lost. Pain flooded through her head, scouring away thoughts as they formed. Where was she? Her body felt like lead. And the Hunger... A tear rolled down her cheek, and she didn't understand why. 

Another snapping twig, and she forced herself to roll over. Something told her this was wrong. There should be no sound. Sound was dangerous. She peered through the thin cover of a juniper, holding her breath. Her body ached, but the reason for the pain was lost to her.

And then, stepping out of the darkness, she saw a little white fox. It strolled between the bushes, coming straight toward her. The fox stared into Rangiku's eyes, freezing her to the spot. It had deep, crimson eyes. Something seemed important about that. A memory tugged at Rangiku, a name, but the pain in her head washed it away.

The fox trotted up on silent paws and stared at her for a few moments. Then, it whined softly and began to lick her face. A man's voice, dry and cracked with age, echoed from the darkness. "Oboyi, what did you find there?"

Rangiku looked up as the man stepped into view. She could not see him clearly by starlight, but he seemed small, almost fragile. Rangiku thought he couldn't be much bigger than she herself. But the man carried a sack, almost as large as he was, slung over one shoulder. He turned now, depositing the sack on the ground with a thump, and walked closer.

Rangiku scrabbled backward and tried to stand, but her muscles were too sore. She lurched upward, but her legs gave out and she fell back to sit on the ground.

The man was right in front of Rangiku now, and he bent closer to examine her. "A girl, Oboyi? And so young. Why, I don't think we've had a girl out here in, oh...three hund... Oh, but never mind that! What am I thinking?" He reached forward, offering Rangiku his hand, and she could just see a smile creasing his face in the faint light.

She took the hand, and the old man helped her up with surprising strength. He wrapped her arm around his shoulders in the same motion, letting Rangiku rest her weight on him. Rangiku was glad of the help, but surprised that the aged man could give it. She was young still, and small, but her legs were too weak to support more than the barest fraction of her weight. Up close now, the man looked even more ancient than he had at a distance. Rangiku could make out lines creasing every inch of his face. A man this old should be crumbling to dust, not helping a young girl like herself to stand.

The man walked Rangiku into a clearing among the juniper bushes, a rough circle of stony dirt four meters in diameter. He sat her on a large rock near the center of the space, easing her down slowly.

The white fox trotted at his heels. It was joined, a moment later, by another small white fox, nearly identical to the first. The man turned to the foxes, ignoring Rangiku. "Omohi, can you find us a few juniper branches for a fire? Oboyi, would you get my bag for me? Thank you." The two foxes whirled, darting away into the underbrush.

Turning his attention back to Rangiku, the man moved his head up and down, studying her. Rangiku shivered under the man's gaze. His eyes turned her stomach to ice, for some reason. Thoughts still shattered as they were forming for her, but Rangiku was aware of power, unlike anything she had ever felt before, radiating from the old man like heat.

The man folded his legs, sitting on the ground and propping his hand on his knee. At length, he spoke to her.

"You're young."

The words took a moment to register, and when they did Rangiku could only blink. She struggled against the pain in her head, finally forming a word. "Yes?" Her hand shot to her temple as the pain redoubled, and she tried desperately to massage it away.

"Ah. My apologies. I forget myself." The old man laughed good naturedly, and all at once the pain was gone. "I simply meant, you're young to be out so far in the wilderness. Souls come here to die. Old souls. It's been a very long time since I've seen someone as young as you."

Without the pain, Rangiku found that she could think again. But with thought came memory, The memory of Gin. A tear ran down her cheek. The old man watched her silently, and his eyes seemed to squeeze her, forcing out the tears like water rung from a damp cloth. He expected her to respond, but the memories were too fresh. Rangiku couldn't bring herself to talk about them.

She tried to resist the tears, ashamed, but they refused to stop. A sob rose from her chest and she fought it back down, but another followed, and another, and Rangiku couldn't stop them all. The pressure was palpable now, squeezing her chest like a vice. Her head thrummed, and she collapsed off the rock, huddling in the dirt as sobs racked her body. The images came back to her. Gin, collapsing in the shack. Gin, with his burning fever. And Gin's mutilated body, unrecognizable even as she cradled it in her arms. Then older memories, memories of how happy she had been with Gin, memories that made his loss hurt so much more.

After what seemed like hours, she felt a hand brushing the tears away from her cheeks, smoothing her hair. The touch reminded her of Gin, of the way he would laugh when she was upset, smile and smooth back her hair. The touch always calmed her, as its memory did now. Tears swam in her eyes, but she could feel them fading, and after a few seconds the watery veil shrouding the world vanished. A last, dry sob, shook her body.

The old man was sitting on the ground just where she remembered, but for the first time she could see him clearly. A fire was burning off to her left, in the center of the clearing, and the glow of its flames danced across his face. A thin scrabble of white hair covered the old man's scalp. His face was like wrinkled parchment and sunbeaten so long it looked as hard as leather. One of his eyes was a striking, brilliant gold. The other was milky white.

"I don't think I've ever seen someone cry so long, child, or so hard. But then again you're young. You don't know what the world is like yet. Everything is still new and raw for you, isn't it?"

Rangiku opened her mouth to argue, but all that came out was a hoarse croak.

The man laughed, a smile creasing his lips, and oddly Rangiku found his good humor reassuring rather than insulting. "Don't trouble yourself, child. Oboyi has already told me all about your boy friend. He says you've been running the last two weeks, or near enough. And running long before that as well, long before you ever met this..." The man looked down, and Rangiku noticed the two white foxes playing at his feet. "Long before you ever met this Gin," he finished.

Rangiku forgot her raw throat for a moment. "How do you know his..." she began, but her cracked voice dissolved into a fit of coughing.

"How do I know his name, child? I don't. Oboyi does. And Oboyi knows it because you know it."

Thought seemed to shatter again. Rangiku massaged her throat. She tried to form another question, but words failed her. The fox knew? And it knew because she knew? What was the old man talking about?

The old man read the confusion on Rangiku's face. "There are things in this world, child, that you will never understand. Best to just accept them for what they are. Now tell me, why are you running?"

"I thought you said you knew!" Rangiku protested heatedly. The words still had a hoarse sound, but oddly her voice seemed to be recovering already.

"No, child, I do not know. Oboyi does, but this time I have chosen to ask you rather than him. Now, why?" The old man spoke with a coolly insistent tone.

Rangiku rubbed a hand through her hair, frowning at the ground. She paused, thinking. Parts of her memory seemed black and empty, like holes in her life, and she found herself trying to look inside them for the answers. Some of those holes were from times long ago. Others were recent. Very recent. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't remember what those holes contained. Finally, she shook her head with a sigh. "I don't know. I can't seem to remember why I was running."

The old man glanced at the foxes again. They ceased playing, and one of them walked to Rangiku. It curled up beside her feet. "Try again, child," the old man ordered.

"But I just..."

"Humor me."

Rangiku closed her eyes and concentrated, focusing her mind on those empty places. But this time, memory flooded back. Memory of the longing that brought her into the wilds beyond Rukongai. Memory of the times before Gin, of the same longing. She had been moving toward the wilds then, too. Until he found her. Until he stopped her. But why had she been running then? What had caused the longing the first time? Rangiku pushed her mind back farther, probing for the true reason.

A black wall slammed down around her memories, closing them off. Rangiku's eyes shot open, and she found the little white fox staring up at her. Oboyi?

"You found your answer, child. That is enough. Now tell me."

_I didn't find the answer_, she wanted to protest. _I was right there. I was so close, but you stopped me. _Somehow she knew it was true. But he had said she found the answer too. The answer...

"Longing," she said. "There was a feeling, a longing, sort of like an emptiness inside me. It took me after Gin died. It called me out here. It took me before, too, though I don't remember the reason. But that longing, that's the reason I was running."

The old man gave her a smile, and Rangiku felt warmth spreading through her, contentment. "Good, child. Good." And then his voice softened, as if he was talking with himself. "But why in one so young?" He looked to the fox at his feet, and the fox stared back at him. The pair of them sat for minutes, silently. Something rubbed against Rangiku's leg and she looked down to see the other fox curling up beside her. She reached down and scratched behind its ears, and the fox gave her a grateful smile.

"Something has a powerful desire for you, child." The old man was staring at her again, his expression now unreadable. "Omohi thinks it's a Hollow, one of the strong ones. He says the holes in your memory are proof enough; something is commanding you. I'm not so sure. You've been out here for two days already, and not a single Hollow has come within sight of you. Something wants you here, badly enough to have called you twice, but whatever it is... Well, no matter. I found you first."

The words washed over Rangiku like water. Nothing could want her. It made no sense. But then again, she had felt the longing. "What do you...?"

"Shh, child. The time for questions is over. Now is the time for listening." There was an intensity in the man's voice now, a fire that made his ancient body suddenly seem much younger. "You must leave. You must go back to Rukongai and never come here again. Something is hunting for you. Find out what, and why."

"I was trying, but you stopped me. Stopped my memories," she protested. "I was about to find out why!"

"No child, you were not. No part of you yet knows why you are being hunted. Find a place where you can seek out the answers."

"But where do I go? What do I do?" Melancholy slipped over Rangiku as she thought of returning to Rukongai. "I don't have anyone left."

"Memories can lie, child. They can play tricks on the mind. Not all is as you believe it to be. In the morning, I will send Oboyi to take you back to Rukongai. He likes your company. Now, before you sleep I will leave you with two pieces of advice. Watch for the one who laughs. He will lead you well. Watch for the one who sings. He would do you harm."

"Wait. What do you mean? Before I sleep? I'm not even tir..." A yawn split Rangiku's jaw, and a familiar pressure settled over her, weighing down her eyelids. She tried her hardest to fight it off.

The old man smiled gently. "I'm sorry, child, but I have more business to be about before the night is through, I have enjoyed meeting you, though." Rangiku's eyes slid shut, and exhaustion overcame her will to stay awake. The old man's final words seemed to come from a great distance. "Remember what I have said. We will not meet again in this world."

Sleep took her, and with sleep came dreams. Scattered, incoherent dreams at first, and then dreams of the past, of her life with Gin. And other dreams, older dreams, images she did not understand.

A voice came to her in dreams, whispered in the darkness. It was a woman's voice, familiar and yet not. She could find no memory of its owner. It whispered just out of hearing as the dreams faded one into another. Rangiku tried to listen, tried to discern the words the voice spoke, but as she listened, the words seemed to blend together into a meaningless rumble of sound.

She woke to the midmorning sun beating down on her already-sunburnt face, and the coarse, sandpapery feel of a tongue lapping at her hand. Rangiku blinked, lost for a moment between waking and sleeping. She raised her head to look toward her hand, and saw a small white fox. Memory stirred, and Rangiku sat up with a start. Something swung forward with her, making a soft jingling noise, and for the first time Rangiku noticed a weight around her neck.

She raised her hand, prompting a soft whine from the fox. She could feel a chain at her neck, almost like a collar. A heavy ring in the front held it closed, and another length of chain dangled from that.Her hand trailed down, raising the chain to where she could see it. Again, a quiet jingling sound.

At the end of the chain was an open ball of carved jade, all of once piece and white as snow. It showed two foxes suspended in a playful fight. Through the gaps in the carving, Rangiku saw that a silver bell rested inside, too large to be removed without breaking the carving. She looked at it wonderingly, and glanced down at the fox beside her. The white fox, so similar to those in the carving, stared back with its startling crimson eyes.

Rangiku rose to her feet, dusting herself off. There was no sign of the old man anymore, not even a residue of the last night's fire. But the longing that had gripped her, the longing she now remembered so clearly, was gone as well. Pain remained, the pain of loss, the pain of Gin's death, but absent the helplessness she had felt before.

A solitary tear rolled down Rangiku's cheek, and she brushed it away. _No more tears_, she promised herself. _No more tears for Gin. I loved him, but he's gone and I'm still here. He had something important to tell me. Now, he never will. It's my turn to find out for myself. It's my turn to live for myself._

Rangiku turned to the fox, curled lazily near her feet. "All right. Oboyi? Show me where we're going."


	7. Omake 1

Author's Note: _The following is pure omake. I'm sorry! I've been really busy the last month or so, and it's destroyed my time to write. It's not likely to let up for at least a few weeks, though if I'm lucky I'll get a little more time here and there. Anyway, given the lack of real material, I figured I'd throw you all a bone. This little snippit is actually more relevant than it may seem at first glance._

_We'll get back to Gin and Rangiku just as soon as I get the chance._

* * *

**Pull Down the World**

_Omake 1_

* * *

Urahara Kisuke dozed, his head resting on the cold, polished wood of the Third Seat desk. The day had hardly begun, but already he was bored. Life in Soul Society just wasn't as exciting as he'd hoped. Even in Second Division. And being in charge of the Second Division special detention facility, as Kisuke was, was perhaps one of the most exciting jobs available to him. But by comparison to Rukongai, and to the work his uncle had been doing...

The shoji door to the office crashed open, and Kisuke bolted upright at his desk. Bright sunlight streamed through, framing a tall figure. The light prevented Kisuke from seeing any more than a silhouette, but Kisuke had no trouble making out the lines of the captain's cloak that hung from the figure's shoulders.

"Urahara! I've got a job for you!" The voice was loud and obnoxious, and it made Kisuke rub his temples.

"Uhhh... Captain Kurosaki...? can you, y'know... maybe be a little... quieter," Kisuke moaned. "Was over at the Eighth last night, and you know how Shunsui is." Kisuke firmly believed hangovers were more likely to kill him than hollows would ever be.

The figure in the door laughed raucously and stepped into the office, sliding the shoji screen closed. Without the backlighting, his face resolved into the stubbly face Kisuke knew so well. Kurosaki Isshin, Captain of the Eleventh Division of the Gotei Thirteen, and widely regarded as the most dangerous man in Soul Society.

Not dangerous to hollows. Dangerous to other shinigami. Mostly, his own subordinates.

Captain Kurosaki fell into a heavy wooden chair across from the desk, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. "Jushirou an' I got to talking the other night. I said you're better with a sword than any of the vice captains. He doesn't believe it. Got a bet goin' with him about whether you can take his Second. I want you to go over to the Thirteenth and show Jushirou yourself." The Captain's voice was as loud as ever. Kisuke felt like his head would explode.

"Now? Captain Kurosaki... I just woke up, and I'm not in any shape to fight a Second Seat." That wasn't strictly true. Kisuke suspected he could take any of them, except possibly Utagawa, even in his present condition. Certainly the vice captain of the Thirteenth, Kiyomizu Ran, was someone Kisuke could defeat. But it was the principle of the thing. "Are you really gonna make me...? C'mon, Yoruichi-chan didn't actually say she'd let you..." Kurosaki nodded curtly. "Can't it at least wait for tomorrow?"

The Captain's brows drew downward, and Kisuke suddenly felt the oppressive weight of Kurosaki Isshin's reiatsu constricting around him. "No, Kisuke, it can't wait for tomorrow. I told Jushirou you were going to be there half an hour ago. You're already late. Now move your ass."

"Yeah, yeah." Kisuke rolled his eyes, prompting another twinge of pain in his head. With a sigh, he stood and grabbed a katana-shaped letter opener off the desk. Benihime reverted to its original form, and he tucked it into his obi, securing the sageyo, the wide cord that hung from the sheath, in a few quick flourishes.

The Captain stood as well, a wide smile creasing his face. "You gonna use your bankai, Kisuke? Jushirou would never expect that."

"No, Captain Kurosaki. I am not going to use my bankai, and will you please stop asking? I showed you once. Isn't that enough?" Kisuke muttered under his breath, rubbing his temple again. "Anyway, Kiyomizu-dono really isn't a very good fighter, no matter what Captain Ukitake thinks."

With a grin, Captain Kurosaki slapped Kisuke on the back. It hurt. Kisuke coughed, which hurt more.

"Fricking...! All right already, Captain, I'm going! But when I get back, I am taking a NAP. I don't care what you want." Kisuke stalked to the door and slammed it open, marching out into the hall of the Second Division Office Complex.

The situation had changed subtly in his mind. Now, Kisuke saw Vice Captain Kiyomizu as the one obstacle between him and his nap. That could not be allowed. That could not be forgiven. Kiyomizu Ran would know the full wrath of the Third Seat of the Second Division. And then Kisuke would go back to bed.

The fight lasted thirty-two seconds. Kisuke never even thought about using his bankai.


	8. Sparring

* * *

**Pull Down the World**

_Chapter 5 - Sparring_

* * *

Clouds of dust drifted through the practice yard, forming swirls and eddies as the wind passed. The weather was hot and dry in Seireitei. It had been so all summer. A fit of coughing erupted from the north side of the yard. One of the students must have been breathing carelessly.

To Ichimaru Gin, the weather was perfect. The dust and heat reminded him of home. They also cloaked his movements, to some degree. There would be no need to hold himself back today, to make the small mistakes he forced himself to make to avoid attracting too much attention.

Gin slid forward, twisting the scabbard of his sword and drawing the blade in a rising slash. His sparring partner, Gin couldn't remember the man's name, danced back to avoid being hit. The small zanpakutou made a shallow cut in the striped gi of his opponent, but it didn't draw blood.

The other trainee had raised his sword above his head as he retreated, and now he stepped forward, bringing the blade down in a wide arc. Dust swirled around Gin's ankles as he caught the blow on the edge of his blade and twisted to the right. His left hand came to the hilt as the sword rotated from the impact, and he aimed a slash at his partner's shoulder. This time, off balance, the other trainee was unable to dodge and Gin's blade bit into flesh. Not deeply, of course - as much as Gin wanted to show these shinigami recruits some of the pain he knew from life in Rukongai, he knew that now was not the time.

Gin's opponent lurched back, dropping the sword and clutching his bleeding shoulder. He stared at Gin in shock, no doubt wondering how the boy had managed to beat him so quickly. "Don'mind it so much," he drawled. "S' pro'lly the dust, throwin' off y'senses." Gin gave the trainee a wide grin as one of the supervising medics from the Fourth Division rushed up. The other trainee nodded absently, bewilderment still painting his face. Gin flicked his blade, cleaning off the blood, and walked to the side of the yard to wait for another opponent.

Live sword training was a mainstay of the Shinigami Academy. Gin had heard a few of the trainees complaining about how dangerous it was to practice with actual zanpakutou, but there was no way to develop the familiarity necessary to release a zanpakutou except by using it in real combat. Besides, shinigami were called upon to risk their lives on a regular basis. The only way to conquer the fear of being hurt in battle was to become accustomed to having it happen. Gin had collected his own fair share of scrapes and cuts from these training exercises. The Fourth Division was always on hand to make sure no one was hurt too badly, though, and to patch up any injuries that needed urgent attention.

Gin reached the side of the practice yard and perched himself on a rough wooden bench. His slitted eyes scanned the grounds, but he found it hard to distinguish the other trainees through the swirling dust. Rough shadows would dance in and out of sight as the haze thinned, or as light cast vague silhouettes against the capricious dust clouds. Gin was glad for the break, short as it might be. The day's training exercises had begun barely two hours before, and already his energy was wearing thin.

A new shadow appeared. It carried a sword unsheathed, resting against its shoulder. Through the dust, the form seemed unusually dark, as if it wore the black robes of a shinigami and not the red and white of an academy trainee. Sweat beaded on Gin's forehead. The world fell out of focus for a moment, and Gin found himself standing in the Rukongai street, staring up at another man who carried his sword the same way. Two men stood behind him in the light-eating robes of shinigami. The one on the left cringed, his red hair blowing in a gentle breeze: Hayashi. And towering on the right, small circular glasses pinching his nose... Utagawa Takeshi he was called – vice-captain of the Third Division, though Gin hadn't known the man's name at the time... And then Itsuka's voice echoed in his head, cutting off thought.

_Po' kid. Whatsamatta? Y'got a problem wit' shinigami? _

Gin blinked. The image evaporated. The form striding through the practice yard resolved itself into a tall man with spiky black hair – and, indeed, the black robes of a full shinigami. The only shinigami Gin had seen in the practice yard were Fourth Division medics. Full shinigami, members of the Gotei Thirteen anyway, practiced within their division compounds. That was what the trainees had been taught. What was this man doing here, in the academy training yards?

The man approached Gin, his steely eyes fixed on the boy's face. Gin felt a moment of panic – could this man be connected to Utagawa, the tall man with glasses? He schooled himself to stillness as the man came to a stop, planting himself directly in front of the bench. "Ichimaru Gin? Well, on your feet Ichimaru. Break's over."

Gin leaned back on the bench, taking a slow breath to calm himself as he looked at the shinigami. The man seemed vaguely familiar, and then it came to him. This was one of the bright, rising stars of Seireitei the academy teachers were always talking about. It took a moment for Gin to remember the name: Shiba. Shiba Kaien. First in his class five years back, and expected to become a vice-captain before long, one of those names the other trainees spoke with the same reverence they gave to the division captains themselves.

"Yer Shiba Kaien, ain'cha? Wha's the rush, Kaien?" Gin forced his face into an insolent grin. "Y'look all... hot 'n bothered. Ya can' really wanna go at it wit' a little trainee like me, can ya?" His voice was mocking, suggestive, but Gin had a hard time keeping his dislike of shinigami in check sometimes. For someone like Shiba, a pretty boy who everyone seemed to love, Gin found it particularly hard to resist the desire to hurt. He rose from the bench placidly.

Gin had grown, in the years since he left Rukongai, but his head only came to Shiba's shoulder. His zanpakutou though, the same one he'd taken from the body of Itsuka years ago, still kept its odd shape. Short, sized for the child Gin had been when he'd first held it. When he'd first used it to kill a shinigami. Gin braced the sword's oval guard with his thumb and brought his right hand around to finger the hilt absently. "'ell, I s'ppose if y'honestly wanna train wit' me, I can' keep ya waitin' too long, can I? All righ'."

Shiba's lips twisted into something like a smile, and he spun on his heel, walking back into the swirling dust of they yard. Gin followed, keeping his body relaxed and his shoulders slouched. Along with the slurring accent, so much like Itsuka's, Gin's posture was part of the attitude he had adopted since entering the Shinigami Academy. It came naturally to him, so naturally it frightened him at times, but he couldn't bring himself to stop.

The anger Gin had felt at the shinigami in Rukongai, the fear and desperation they inspired, had commingled in Gin's mind. For a while, there was hatred. Hatred for the shinigami and everything they represented. The stability of Soul Society. The security. The System. But hatred was difficult to keep hold of. It had endured for the first few months of academy training, but slowly, slowly, that hatred had boiled away, leaving only disgust and contempt. The academy trainees were soft, weak. The resonance Gin had felt in Itsuka, the mark of the Gift, was hardly noticeable among the students. Even the few shinigami Gin had seen since coming to Soul Society seemed too weak to deserve hatred.

So Gin clung to the image of Itsuka. Itsuka staring down at him in the dust of Ishibana's main street, framed by his two companions. There was nothing weak about Itsuka. The first shinigami Gin had seen. The first shinigami he had killed. Itsuka always inspired anger. And memories of Rangiku, of what Gin had left to come here. That, in turn, fueled more anger. And resolve. There was only one way to help Rangiku now.

"Hey. Ichimaru. You ready, or what? Been hoping to have a go at you for a while. Don't ruin this for me by getting all whacked out." The voice brought Gin around and he found himself staring up at Shiba, who stood before him with crossed arms and a sour expression. Shiba Kaien. Another shinigami, the first true shinigami to face Gin since Itsuka. And thinking of that, Gin found himself suddenly aware of the resonance he felt from Shiba. This man was strong. Stronger, maybe, than even Itsuka. No wonder the trainees held him in such reverence. Gin felt a different kind of hunger wake within him. He felt the desire to hurt, yes, but he also lusted to test his own strength against this man. Any thought of why Shiba might be here washed away, as Gin felt excitement flood through him.

Gin grinned. Wordlessly, he lowered his weight, leaning forward and placing his right hand on the hilt of the zanpakutou. It was the stance he liked best, quick on attack. Dust swirled as Shiba, now smiling himself, gripped the hilt of his own sword. Gin wasted no time, moving forward with a flash step. The technique was still largely untrained, but speed was Gin's province. He twisted the sheath back along his hip, drawing the blade free.

A dull clack sounded from waist level, momentarily dropping the grin from Gin's face. His eyes darted down to see the hilt of Shiba's sword pressed against his own, pinning it in place. The grin slipped completely as Gin turned his head up, regarding his opponent who now stood less than a foot distant.

Shiba gripped his own sheath just behind the mouth, and spun it in an upward circle, clearing it from Gin's blade but simultaneously aiming a strike to his temple with the butt of the zanpakutou. Gin leaned back, and the hilt whistled in front of him before altering into a thrust at his chest. Spinning on his left heel, Gin slid his own sheath forward to catch the strike.

The hilts clacked together with that same dull thunk, but this time Gin retook the initiative, going to one knee to deliver a sweeping kick at Shiba's ankles. The other trainee leapt to avoid, unsheathing his zanpakutou in the air and aiming a downward strike at Gin's head.

Gin brought his leg back, tucking it against his knee in a sitting position and drawing his own blade. His left hand shot up, bracing the back of the sword as Shiba's blow struck. The force of the impact jarred Gin's bones, but he was able to deflect Shiba's blade off to his left.

Gin rose up on his right knee, twisting his guard into a downward strike at his opponent's waist. Shiba danced back out of range, regaining control of his zanpakutou. Gin stood smoothly, returning his blade to its sheath and resuming that favored stance, hand on his hilt and poised on the balls of his feet, ready to dart forward.

"Not bad," Shiba laughed. Dust swirled around his ankles, blocking Gin's view of his footwork. "Not bad at all. In fact, unless that was luck Ichimaru, you should be training with classes a year or more ahead of where you are. Why do you hold back? Don't you care about becoming shinigami?"

Gin hissed in frustration, darting forward like an uncoiling snake. He had killed real shinigami before. Shiba was no different from Itsuka, Shiba would fall under the same blade. Any lingering thought of holding back fled. Gin's blade sang as it came free of its scabbard. He swung angrily, and felt his blade meet resistance. Not the hard resistance of a parry, the soft resistance of flesh.

Shiba spun away, out of the reach of Gin's sword, and he was able to see blood staining the man's right shoulder. Good. Pain was what shinigami deserved. Shiba frowned, bringing his sword forward in a guarded stance.

Gin lunged again, dodging to the left to take advantage of Shiba's wounded shoulder. He aimed a stab at the man's torso, around where his kidneys should be. If he struck, the medics would still be able to save Shiba. Probably. And if not, training accidents were known to happen, even to members of the Gotei Thirteen. Anger kept Gin from caring.

Shiba vanished. A sharp pain struck Gin's wrists, and he cried out in surprise as his sword fell from his hands, clattering in the dust. He felt the pressure of a blade at his neck, and a hand wrapped around his forearm, holding him in place.

Dust swirled up and around the pair, hiding them from view, and a feeling of resonance told Gin that Shiba was using his Gift to control the wind. "I didn't... expect that, Ichimaru." Shiba's voice was tight from the strain of holding Gin. "Seems like that really... set you off."

Gin made a conscious effort to relax himself. He found that his lips had curled back in a snarl. He forced his face to stillness. "Naa. I think yer jes' imaginin' it, Kaien. Anyway, maybe I did jes' get lucky. Anybody can get a lucky shot in, now'n again."

The sword, and the grip on Gin's arm, didn't relax. "Don't play with me, Ichimaru. Utagawa's been asking questions about you, and I want to know why. Is there something between you and him?"

At the name, and Gin felt his stomach turn to ice. "Stupid," he whispered to himself. "Stupid, stupid."

"Speak up, Ichimaru. I don't want to hold the wind any longer than I have to." The blade pressed tighter against Gin's throat.

Gin considered a moment, and he could feel Shiba tensing at the pause. The sword nicked his neck, and he felt a bead of blood forming along the blade. He had to say something. But clearly Utagawa hadn't told Shiba to kill him, or that blade wouldn't still be hesitating at his neck. "He send ya, then, Shiba? You the one he has doin' his dirty work, now he ain't got Itsuka aroun' anymore? Well, Utagawa ain't no friend o' mine, Shiba. S'prised he din' tell ya that himself."

The sword moved away and Gin saw gaps form in the swirling dust. A weak kick to the back of his knee didn't hurt, but it was enough to crumple Gin to the ground. Shiba slung the sword back onto his shoulder and laughed in a rich voice.

"Maybe I was wrong. Mighta been dumb luck after all. Why don'cha come by the Thirteenth Division compound tonight, and I'll see if I can give ya some pointers. Got a bit of talent, I think, even if you can't do much with it yet." He turned and strode away, leaving Gin lying in the dirt. Dust blew over him, briefly obscuring his view of the bright summer sky.

* * *

The evening air was cool as Gin crept through a moonlit corridor within the Thirteenth Division barracks. "Stupid. Ten times stupid. I don't want to be here." The words echoed down the hall, louder than he might have wished, but Gin couldn't keep himself from saying them. Why was he doing this?

Utagawa. Damn it, Utagawa Takeshi. That was why. Gin cursed himself for a fool. He groped unthinkingly for the hilt of his sword, but found no reassurance. Trainees were not permitted to leave the Academy grounds with their zanpakuto. Ichimaru Gin was trapped, however he looked at it.

The door he was looking for stood ajar, pale light creeping out in a spreading wedge. It had taken questions to find out the location of Shiba's room, questions which Gin already regretted. He wanted to blend in here. Nothing to make him stand out in peoples' minds. Being out of the Academy barracks, wandering through a division compound, those sorts of things drew attention like rotting meat drew flies. He pushed the door open and slid inside.

Shiba Kaien was perched on a simple wooden chair drawing a whetstone down the blade of his sword. "Shut the door, Ichimaru. We should be able to talk here, tonight at least."

Gin drew the door closed before walking around to take a chair facing the shinigami, the only other chair in the room. Soft candlelight filled the chamber, and the moon outside added its own pale illumination. "It don' need sharpenin', ya know. The zanpakutou."

Shiba looked up, his eyebrows rising in amusement even as he continued stropping the blade. "And how do you know so much about zanpakutou, Ichimaru? It does for some. Most of the trainees in your grade probably still sharpen their swords. It may not be necessary for you. Not for me either, but I find it relaxing." The whetstone made a rasping sound as Shiba pulled it across the blade. "You stand out too much."

"I sta- Wait. Wha'?" The sudden change of topic caught Gin off guard. He leaned forward, almost falling from the small wooden chair.

Shiba set his sword on a low table sitting beside his chair. "Everything you do is begging for attention, Ichimaru. Everyone in the academy wants to be shinigami. Some of them never will. Even of the ones who do, many of them won't have enough strength or skill to be much more than agents in the mortal world. But you…." He held his hand in a fist, opening it to count off his points. "You have more potential than anyone else in your year. Your reiatsu is much stronger than a normal first-year, stronger than anyone in the Academy by some reports. You're good with the sword too, and you don't hide it half as well as you think. Plus, your zanpakutou is a full foot shorter than any other I've seen. Even I can't control the form of my sword yet, Ichimaru. There aren't more than a handful of shinigami in all of Soul Society who can control the shape of an unreleased zanpakutou. Tousen Kaname is the only other man I know who entered the academy with a non-standard sword and the strength to keep it in that form. And Tousen may be a captain before much longer. Consciously or unconsciously you're managing to control your sword, too. Right there, that's enough to mark you out as the most interesting trainee in your year, maybe the most interesting in the last decade." One finger.

"But it's more than that, Ichimaru. You should be the name everyone in the academy is talking about, but instead you try to hide. Hide who you are, what you can do. You don't make any friends. You don't talk to anyone unless you have to. Your little game of hiding your skill with the sword might convince the other trainees, but it doesn't fool your instructors. I've heard your name mentioned a number of times, and every time it comes with questions about why you're so reluctant to show your skill." Two fingers.

"And the real kicker is this. You don't even want to be here. Don't say otherwise; I can see it. The way you hold yourself like you're better than us, better than the trainees and betterthan the shinigami too. The scorn you always have in your voice. The anger, just under the surface. You showed me that this morning, Ichimaru, in the practice yard. You hate being here, but you still work harder than any other trainee in your year. You want something, and I don't think it's to become one of us." Three fingers. "I don't think anyone else has noticed that part yet. It's obvious; it just doesn't make any sense. If you're lucky, maybe no one else will notice. If you're lucky. But the point is, you stand out too much."

Gin frowned defensively. "Ask me, Kaien, an' I'd say yer imaginin' things. Might be I jes' don' like the other trainees my age, y'know? They'ra bit flaky, to be hones'. I'm here for three square ev'ry day, tha's all. Don' much care 'bout shinigami or nothin', but I do care 'bout gettin' fed." He slouched in his chair, a cold smile creasing his face, his eyes tight slits to conceal the wariness and worry he felt. Shiba's words hit too close to the mark.

The shinigami sat silently, his eyes birdlike as he stared at Gin. The moment stretched, and when Shiba continued to say nothing, Gin rose languidly to his feet. "'f tha's all you've got t'say t'me, Kaien, that ya think I'm... odd... Then I'll jes' be sayin' g'nite."

"Wait." The word was an order. "All right, you don't want to listen to my advice. Fine. Your own problem. But I asked why Utagawa's been asking questions about you, and I will have an answer to that. What you said in the yard was enough to get you this far, but I need more."

_Enough to get me this far? What does that mean?_ Gin lowered himself back to the chair slowly. "Fine. Fine. But I dunno what'cha wanna ask me for. I told ya, Utagawa ain't no friend o' mine. 'f there's somethin' you wanna know why don'cha jes' ask him yerself?"

Shiba laughed darkly. "Ask Utagawa Takeshi myself? Oh, I'm sure he'd like nothing more than to have Shiba Kaien march into the Third Division compound and ask for an audience. No Ichimaru, Utagawa has many friends but I don't count myself among them. I'd probably be lucky to get out of that compound alive. Anyway, what I asked you was why he should be interested in you."

The tension Gin had felt ever since entering the room relaxed slightly. So Shiba was no agent of Utagawa. He was still like a poisoned arrow, nocked and ready to kill like all shinigami, but at least he wasn't aimed at Gin. "Maybe Utagawa's interested for the same reasons ya jes' mentioned, Kaien. Maybe he thinks I'm hidin' somethin' too, or maybe he's jes' interested in all that talent you say I have. Couldn' that be the case?"

Gin's sarcasm rolled over Shiba like waves crashing past a boulder. "I very much doubt it, Ichimaru. I hear he takes more of a personal interest in you – where you come from, how you happened to enter the academy with a zanpakuto already in your possession. Why your accent sounds just like Itsuka Shin."

The name sent a chill up his spine. Itsuka was the very reason why Gin had tried to avoid standing out. He didn't know who could connect Gin to the dead shinigami, aside from the two other shinigami he had seen in Rukongai, but Gin still carried the man's zanpakuto. Were there tests, to verify the owner of a sword? Were there other ways the shinigami could discover that he killed one among their ranks? But if Utagawa was already asking questions, Gin had obviously failed to conceal himself. Gin folded his arms over his chest and sat in silence. thinking it through. How much should he say? Not all, certainly. Killing a shinigami, even in self defense, wasn't something he wanted to mention to anyone in the Court of Souls. But how little could he say and still have Shiba believe him.

He had to tell Shiba something, but the whole truth was out of the question. Whether he cared for Itsuka or not, Gin doubted Shiba Kaien would hesitate to turn on a boy like Gin if he learned the truth, that a Rukongai brat had killed a member of the Gotei Thirteen. "I had a... friend... Out in Rukongai. His name was Terada Yusuke." Gin worked to keep his voice normal as his mind considered the problem. Should he say Yusuke had been murdered? Would another shinigami really believe one of their own capable of murder? "Utagawa, an' one o' his men, that Itsuka ya mentioned... they hurt 'im. They tried ta hurt me too, but I got away. I din' think Utagawa'd remember. He'd only seen me once, an' only for a few seconds, fore I came to Seireitei."

_And why didn't you think he'd remember,_ a small voice said. _When you killed his lieutenant and had the audacity to come to the academy with not only the man's sword but his accent too? You really thought he wouldn't notice?_

Shiba frowned. "I've never heard of this Terada, but he's far from the first person Fujiwa... Far from the first they've had killed. Surprised you managed to get away. I have... friends, Ichimaru. They might be able to offer you some protection, if Utagawa or someone else comes after you again."

"An' what would you get out o' this, Shiba? You an' yer 'friends'?" Gin's voice was cool, but he could feel anger forming in the pit of his stomach again. He knew why he was here. He wouldn't be sucked into some petty fight between rival shinigami. Shinigami were all the same, all better off dead.

"Your help, when the time comes. It might be enough just to know you wouldn't side with them, but better if you said you'd support us." Shiba leaned forward, steepling his fingers expectantly.

Gin made a show of considering the offer for nearly half a minute. Then he laughed. "What, do ya really think I'm gnna take help from shinigami, Shiba? From shinigami? Does a fox ask a wolf ta protect it from other wolves? Nah, I can take care o' myself." A tremor ran through his body at the words. Gin knew very well that if Utagawa wanted him dead, he didn't stand a chance. But accepting help from shinigami, any shinigami, was more than he could bring himself to do. He stood and walked to the door, hoping the action masked his shivers.

Shiba stared at him for a long moment, his face blank of all expression. Finally, he nodded. "All right, Ichimaru. Have it your way. But think about what I said. You stand out already. You're better off exploiting that fact than trying to disguise it. If you change your mind, all you have to do is slip me the word."

Gin turned back to the older trainee and gave one sad shake of his head. "I won', shinigami. There ain't a one o' you here that I trust. I'll be fine on my own." _I can't fail, for her sake._

He left the door open when he slipped back into the night-darkened hallway.


	9. Meetings

Author's Note: _It's been quite a while. Apologies. Work has finally freed up enough for me to get back to writing, and here's the first return to Pull Down the World. Hopefully more will be coming on this line soon._

* * *

**Pull Down the World**

_Chapter 6 - Part I - Meetings_

* * *

"I want him taken care of, Takeshi. Urahara knows too much. I won't let him put my position in jeopardy." 

"As you say, Sir, but he's a difficult man to reach. And his nephew may cause trouble."

Rangiku lay on her stomach, hidden behind a screen of leaves. The tangled mass of bushes had looked inviting enough in last night's rain, but now her side was sore where a branch had been digging against it for hours. Her bladder felt ready to burst, too, but there was no way to escape from the bushes without making so much noise that the two men would certainly notice her. And that would have been a disaster, according to Oboyi. Rangiku had learned to trust the fox's judgment.

"Kisuke?" The man with his back to Rangiku snorted dismissively. Leaves blocked most of his body from view, but Rangiku could see that his hair was steely gray. The man's voice sounded like gravel pounding on a drumhead. "Kurosaki may claim he's a genius, but I've seen none of it myself. He lacks experience. Kisuke may become a danger in time, but he has far to go before he reaches his potential. Perhaps better if we have to deal with him now, rather than later."

The other man, the tall one, pushed his glasses higher onto the bridge of his nose. "Be that as it may, Sir, that doesn't address the difficulties in reaching Urahara himself. You know I've set men to track down any rumors as to his whereabouts, and they report as little progress now as they have before."

"I have reliable intelligence that Urahara is in this very district as we speak. You know he's always favored the western districts."

"Here, in Hokuan? Would he dare come this close to the Walls?"

"There are certain things he needs, that he can only get from his contacts in the Court. It's much easier if he arranges the meetings closer to the Walls, where the movements of Shinigami don't attract as much attention."

"But how could he...? My men would have heard if he were coming this close!" The one called Takeshi appeared flustered.

"The subordinates you have are weak. Perhaps it's time we gave you more control. Akatake has been looking unwell of late, don't you think?"

Takeshi fell silent, his eyes narrowing. "Would you have me fight him for control of the Third, Sir? That hardly seems-"

"Do not presume, Takeshi. The Captain General has had a... change of heart... about allowing you to test for captaincy."

"And do you think that change of heart would persist, even if Captain Akatake were to be found dead?"

"That would depend very much on who found him, and on how he died, Takeshi. Do not concern yourself with it. Matters will be seen to."

Takeshi bowed his head in acceptance. "It will be as you command, Sir. Is there anything else, or shall I see about setting my men to track down Urahara?"

"One more thing," the other figure hissed. "What of the boy?"

"The situation there is unchanged, Sir. I have reports that he spoke with Shiba, but nothing more. If they extended him an offer, it appears he has rebuffed it."

The older man hummed appreciatively. "Now that is good news. Is it possible you were mistaken about him?"

"No, Sir, I do not believe so." A scowl crossed Takeshi's face for a moment. "I haven't had the opportunity to observe him closely, but... His zanpakutou shares the same markings as Itsuka's, of that much I am certain. How a... a CHILD could have beaten one of my best men, I don't know. But he has the sword."

"Itsuka was a loss." A hint of regret touched that gravelly tone. "He might have made a fine Lieutenant for you, Takeshi. He was a child of Rukongai himself. If the boy did indeed kill him, I suppose it's fitting that he died at the hands of one of his own. I'll speak with Sousuke. Perhaps he can bring the boy around to us."

"I don't trust that man, Sir. Captain Aizen has never seemed fully in line with our goals." A note of irritated pleading entered Takeshi's voice.

"Sousuke is my creature, Takeshi, just as you are. I will not tell you again. This meeting is at an end. You have tasks to be about."

Takeshi dropped to one knee, leaving Rangiku's field of view. "I serve and obey, Sir."

The figure of the older man seemed to blur, and then vanish. Rangiku pushed herself up on her elbows, careful not to rustle the leaves around her. The man called Takeshi seemed to be gone as well. Still, she counted a full one hundred, listening for any sound. It was agony, waiting so long, but she made herself wait until she was sure the two had left. Then, finally, Rangiku wriggled out of the cover of the bushes.

A few feet away, she saw a small white shape slip out of the bushes as well. It was perfectly silent, as always. Running to her, it began to play happily at her feet.

"Okay. Okay, Oboyi! Give me a minute, and we can leave. Who were those men, anyway?" Not that the fox ever answered, but Rangiku often had the nagging feeling that it could, if only she knew how to listen properly.

Rangiku turned her back on the fox and walked behind a tree, squatting to relieve herself. The fox gave a shrill yip, but waited for her to return.

"You going to tell me about those men, then? No? Cat got your tongue, kid?" Oboyi gave Rangiku an unamused look. "Well, whatever. You seem to know where we're going. Lead on, my little friend." As the fox bounded away, Rangiku followed with quick steps.

That had been the way of things for as long as she could remember, now. Each morning, waking up and following wherever Oboyi went. She had only expected the little white fox to take her as far as the borders of Rukongai, but it had stuck with her even after. They had returned to the home she had shared with Gin first, and despite all her promises to herself, she was unable to keep back the tears. She had spent one last night in the little shack, curled up and crying, with Oboyi looking on in silence. Then she had gathered what little remained to her - dresses, her sewing kit, and a small wooden cat Gin had carved for her once - and left.

That was the last night Rangiku had spent under a roof. Ever since, Oboyi had led her through the wilderness within Rukongai, through the open spaces that ran between the districts. They had slept in the open, under the stars. They had slept in caves, under bushes like last night, anywhere they could find. Rangiku had hated it at first. Not that she was used to the most comfortable bedding, but there was a substantial difference between sleeping in a rough wooden shack, and sleeping in a cave that might have played home to a den of bears. But gradually, week by week, month by month, Rangiku had come to enjoy it.

With Oboyi by her side, the longing she had felt, the longing that had driven her out past the borders of Rukongai had never returned. Neither had the hunger that she remembered so acutely from her time with Gin. Her memory... That persisted, though. Even knowing that Gin was dead, not a day passed without her remembering him. Remembering his kindness. Remembering the way he smiled for her. Remembering his eyes, those deep crimson eyes she had seen only once, but that haunted her memory like lost souls.

Oboyi barked, bringing Rangiku's attention back to the present. They were standing on a hilltop overlooking a sprawl of low wooden buildings. Rangiku blinked in surprise. In all the time they'd been together, Oboyi had rarely brought her within sight of one of Rukongai's ramshackle districts, and never led her to one like this. The houses below were small, but well-built. Much better than the buildings Rangiku remembered from Ishibana, the 79th district of West Rukongai near where she had lived with Gin. Of course, from what the two men had been saying, she and Oboyi must be near the walls of Seireitei now. Hokuan, somewhere in West Rukongai, they had said. The name held no more meaning for Rangiku than any other, though.

Rangiku was not sure she and Oboyi had ever come this close to Seireitei. The few times she had seen the district villages in their travels, those villages had always looked more like Ishibana than this. Oboyi seemed to choose a new direction each day, and Rangiku had given up asking the little fox to take her in any specific direction. Probably, it was still following some command from the old man in the wilderness, to keep her safe, or to guide her somewhere. Though it hardly seemed likely Oboyi was taking her to a specific place. Rangiku was sure that in all the time they had traveled together, she could easily have traversed the whole of Rukongai three or four times.

And now, straight to one of the villages. Oboyi barked again and loped down the hill, leaving Rangiku no choice but to follow. Ahead, she could see what seemed like a cloud of dust blanketing the whole village, kicked up by the crowds of people that thronged the streets. There was noise, too; the ever-present chatter of people who lived together talking, laughing, shouting. It felt strange, seeing this press of people all together when she and Oboyi had avoided any contact with them for so long. Rangiku felt sure all the men and women in the village would turn as one and stare at her, the outsider, approaching their space. Her stomach knotted anxiously, but she forced herself to put one foot in front of the next, following Oboyi.

And then they were at the edge of the buildings, pressing into the crowd themselves. No one looked around to see Rangiku. Her dress, which she scarcely even thought of anymore, was tattered from travel and patched by her own hands. Perhaps two or three years of travel - the seasons all seemed to blur together in Rangiku's mind now. It was hardly more than rags when set against the well-cut clothes worn by these villagers. Yet no one seemed to pay her any more mind than anyone else on the street. How could they all be so... so casual?

A man in a thick leather vest, carrying a long-handled hammer propped against his shoulder, came out of a side alley and bumped into Rangiku, knocking her to the ground. The man stopped, staring down at her with hard eyes and taking in her clothes. "Hey, girl, watch where you're going. We ain't got much use for your kind up here, so stay outta the way if you don't wanna get kicked back down."

Rangiku opened her mouth to apologize, but couldn't seem to find the words. Her throat constricted, and she felt fear welling up in her stomach. She didn't belong here. These people would turn on her. She couldn't be here. The apology she couldn't speak turned into a feral snarl, and she bounded to her feet, sprinting past the man and down the street. She had to get away. There were so many people, everywhere. There had to be some place without people.

Curses followed after her as she snaked through the mass of bodies. Her legs were longer now, good for running - she had grown in the time she had been with Oboyi - but she was still shorter than most of the men and women on the street. She found herself shouldering into people as often as not, unable to see them through the crowds until the last second. The throng never seemed to thin. She had lost Oboyi now, but all Rangiku could think of was finding a way out. She had to get out. She had to-

An arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her into a doorway lining a heavily-shadowed alley. She squirmed and the arm tightened, holding her in place. Panic invaded Rangiku's mind and her hands reached up to claw at the form in front of her, someone, barely taller than she was herself. She landed a blow, then another, and heard a low hollering from the figure. Then something slipped over her mouth, and darkness enveloped her.

---------------------------

When she woke, Rangiku found herself lying on a table in a darkened room. There was a pillow under her head. It was... comfortable, in a way she scarcely remembered. The memory of her flight through the village came back, and she hissed angrily, trying to sit up. Her body didn't move, though she felt a tightness across her chest, stomach, and hips that she hadn't noticed before.

"Ahh, so you're awake!" a voice called cheerfully. "You surprised me back in the alley, but I couldn't let you just run through Hokuan like that. I have a hard enough time avoiding attention without someone like you threatening to bring it crashing down on me."

A plaintive whine came from nearby the voice, and Rangiku struggled against the bonds instinctively. She turned her head, and in the darkness she could just make out the silhouette of a figure sitting in a chair near the corner of the room.

"Oh, yes. Your friend came by not long after. He put up such a fuss outside my door, I had no choice but to let him in. Then, he came straight to you. He's an interesting one, he is. Does he have a name?"

"Let. Me. Go," Rangiku grated through clenched teeth.

The voice, a man she though, tasked in amusement. "Not just yet, my girl. Not that I mean to keep you like that, no. But last time you near enough gave me a new scar on my face, and I'd just as rather you didn't try again."

"**You** grabbed **me**, you... you..." Rangiku bit her tongue as she realized she didn't really know any insulting names she could call the man. "What was I **supposed** to do!?"

"Hmmmm. I suppose you have a point, at that. But still. You don't sound like you're quite ready to be civil yet, anyway. Now, how about you tell me what you're doing in Hokuan. Or what you're doing running around outside my workshop. Or what you're doing with this remarkable little fox." Oboyi yipped, happy at being included in the conversation again.

Rangiku knew better than to tell the man the truth, but she'd never considered a story to explain her wandering either. She had had so little contact with other people in so long, it had never occurred to her. She knew she couldn't pass herself off as a resident of this district, though. Her clothes would give her away there, if nothing else. She decided to try something close to the truth, just not too close.

"My family died. We lived in the outer districts. My father had a... a clothing shop, and I helped my mother make dresses. Anyway, they died, and... and I left. And I took Oboyi with me."

The man didn't respond. Silence stretched on for a minute. Two. Then, he spoke again, his voice cold. "Girl, that is the most worthless story I've ever heard. I have half a mind to believe it's true, some of it anyway. Only someone who lacked all wits would come up with a lie that bad." Rangiku fumed quietly. "But you still didn't tell me why you're here. Or why you have this little fox friend. Oboyi? That's a name I haven't heard in a while."

"I don't have to tell you anything! Let me go!"

A sigh came from the corner where the man was sitting. "Fine. Maybe this would go easier if I explained why I brought you here." He sounded far too reasonable for a man who had her bound to a table somewhere in a back alley.

"I don't care what you have to say! Just untie me and le-"

"You, my girl, have the most amazing reiatsu," he said, riding right over her protestations. "I've never seen anything like it outside Seireitei. Not often there, though it's been a while since I was allowed to visit. Now me, I like my privacy. I have research to do, and I'd prefer to do it in peace. But I can hardly do that when you're running all over Hokuan, threatening to bring Shinigami down on me like a bloody avalanche. I'm just lucky no one else was close enough to notice you. I was shocked to feel you at all - you should have drawn them like flies to honey long before now, if you've been in the upper districts. But from your clothes, I'd guess you haven't been here long at that, and from this... Oboyi of yours, I think I understand the rest as well."

The torrent of explanation seemed to pause for a moment. Rangiku had followed very little of it. "Reiatsu?"

"...you really are witless, aren't you girl? You don't even know." It wasn't a question.

"Know what? All I know is, you grabbed me off the street, knocked me out, tied me up, and now you want to ask me questions!"

"I see explaining this is going to take some time," the man sighed, and Rangiku could see the shadow in the corner stand and walk to the bed. "If you promise to behave, I'll let you up and we can discuss this over a nice pot of tea."

Rangiku opened her mouth to tell him what he could do with his tea, but fell silent when she heard a soft mumbling come from the figure. Suddenly, a red light sprang into being in his cupped hand, like a sphere of roiling fire. It cast flickering shadows across his face, a face that looked much older than she would have thought from the man's voice. Still, there was a pleasant twinkle in his eyes. Her own eyes strayed back to the ball of flame. How had he done that? "All right, I promise." Rangiku felt surprised to hear herself saying those words.

The man smiled and reached down with his other hand to unbuckle the leather bindings holding her to the table. "Good, I'm glad to hear that. Well then, girl, do you have a name I can call you?"

"Rangiku," she said. "Matsumoto Rangiku". She rubbed her arms where the bindings had bit into them. She couldn't see in this light, but she was sure they must be red from the pressure.

"Then it's my pleasure to meet you, Matsumoto Rangiku," he said, offering her hand and helping her off the table. My name is Urahara Satoru."


	10. Tea and Sandwiches

* * *

**Pull Down the World**

_Chapter 6 - Part II - Tea and Sandwiches_

* * *

A thin trail of steam climbed off the surface of the teacup sitting on the table. Rangiku found herself staring at the pattern of whorls and flowers pained on the delicate porcelain again. In her life, she had never seen anything as elegant as that little cup.

"Drink, girl, before it gets cold." Satoru chuckled to himself. "Way you're staring at it, I'd almost think you'd never seen tea before."

Rangiku reached out carefully and tried to wrap her fingers around the cup. She pulled her hand back with a gasp. The porcelain was thin, and she could feel all the heat of the almost-boiling water that had been used to brew the tea. Satoru chuckled again, and she shot a glare at him. She tried once more, this time pinching the little handle between her thumb and forefinger,lifting the cup off the saucer. It felt heavy, and she had to fight to keep her hand from shaking as she brought the cup to her lips and sipped noisily, trying not to scald her tongue. The tea held a delicious taste of lemon and honey.

Satoru watched as she sipped at the tea, his creased face expressionless over steepled fingers. A thin fringe of white hair clung to the sides of his scalp, and liver spots dotted the top of his head. Rangiku sipped at the tea again, and touched her palm to the cup quickly to see if it was still too hot to hold. It was.

Rangiku found her eyes drifting around the room. Paintings lined the walls, showing a variety of landscapes, some of which were so exotic Rangiku had never seen the like of them. The table at which she sat was large, made from reddish Maplewood and carved around the edges in a simple dovetail pattern. Rangiku had never seen so much finery in one place before. The room had no windows, though, and she had seen no windows in the hallways outside either. Could all this be underground?

"Well, Rangiku, now that you seem to have calmed down, let me ask again. Why is it that you were crashing through the alleyways just outside my... home, here? Perhaps you can find a more convincing answer this time?"

Rangiku gave a sigh and glanced down at Oboyi, who lay curled beside her chair. Oboyi lifted its head and gave her a long look before settling back into its nap. Rangiku had the distinct impression the fox was willing her to speak. She trusted Oboyi's judgment, but...

"I'm from... Ishibana. I don't know if you know that district. It's the 79th district of West Rukongai."

Satoru nodded, his eyes hardening momentarily. "I know of it."

Rangiku was surprised to feel her mouth twitch into a smile, pleased that the man had heard of her district. "Well, I lived there with... my family." Gin was like family, and she did love him. There was no one she would have considered her mother or her father, but her earlier story hadn't strayed all that far from the truth.

"And you said they died, girl. How long ago was this?"

Rangiku paused for a moment, thinking. "I'm not really sure. At least a year ago. Maybe two or three. I haven't... yeah. Maybe two or three years ago."

"Would you like something to eat, girl? You must be hungry, after running like that." Satoru pushed a plate of little sandwiches across the table toward her, and Rangiku realized that she did feel a little hungry. Only a little, but it was the first time she had felt hunger since... Her eyes fell on the fox curled beside the chair again. Since she had met the old man in the wilderness. Since she had met Oboyi.

When Rangiku nodded and took one of the sandwiches, a small smile crept across Satoru's face. "And your family, Rangiku. Were you often hungry in Ishibana?"

"At the beginning, yeah," Rangiku said offhandedly. "But then when-" Rangiku cut off, remembering suddenly what Gin had said to her that night, the last night she had seen him before he died. Something about hunger. The Hunger. There had been a strange sort of emphasis when Gin talked about it. Rangiku didn't know what it might mean, but it could be important. And if it were important, she wasn't sure she wanted this man knowing too much.

"Well eat, child. Eat. You can hardly have tea without sandwiches, can you?" Satoru moved around the hesitance easily. He poured a cup of tea for himself and leaned back in his chair, sipping at it with a look of pleasure. "I suppose you're probably wondering about me, as well. What sort of old codger would... I hesitate to use the word 'abduct', but yes, well, abduct you off the street so unceremoniously?" He smiled a wide, beaming smile and watched Rangiku expectantly.

Rangiku stared into her tea, feeling a blush creep into her cheeks. Satoru laughed again and continued. "Well, what can I tell you, hmm? I'm a scientist. I have certain... talents, which can be very much in demand. Among certain people. There are some, also, who take no great liking to my work. No great liking indeed." Satoru rubbed his chin, rough with stubble, and a mischievous gleam lit his eyes. "Which is of course, my Dear, precisely why you are here with me now. I couldn't have you running about bringing attention down on me, could I? I enjoy my privacy quite a lot, you see."

Rangiku looked up at him again, a frown of confusion turning her mouth. "But... why would someone care about me? Why would I draw attention to you?" She didn't understand. But in the back of her mind, she heard the too-spry voice of the ancient man in the wilderness again. _Something has a powerful desire for you, child._

"Why, your reiatsu of course, girl. I told you that. Oh but yes, you don't know what that is, do you? Hmmm... How can I explain?" Satoru glanced around the room, his eyes settling on a tray of fruit sitting on a sideboard next to the table. He stood and retrieved two oranges from the tray, and then brought them back to his seat. Then he reached into the pocket of his shirt and retrieved two small, metal spikes. About the size of knitting needles, Rangiku thought. Satoru stabbed one into each orange and set them on the table, spikes facing upward.

"All right, girl. We'll start at the beginning. Do you know what spirit particles are?" Rangiku shook her head fractionally, and Satoru smiled reassuringly. "Well, spirit particles make up everything in our world. This room we're in, the paintings on the walls, the food we eat. All these things are made up of spirit particles. Even our bodies are made up of spirit particles. Not our souls, though - just our bodies."

Rangiku set her teacup back on the table, listening attentively to Satoru. The old man had slipped into a lecturing tone, something Rangiku wasn't used to. He seemed intently focused on the ideas he was talking about.

"So, everything is spirit particles," he continued, gesturing around the room for emphasis. "Now imagine that these oranges are people. The rinds are their souls. The stuff inside, that's the spirit particles that make up their bodies. Just like you and me - our souls govern and contain the spirit particles that make up our bodies. You with me so far, girl?" Rangiku nodded quickly.

Reaching for one of the oranges, Satoru plucked out the needle. What happened next prompted a gasp from Rangiku. She watched with eyes wide while, just like a balloon, the orange deflated. Its juice fountained a few centimeters into the air, and then began forming into a shifting sphere that grew with each new drop of juice. The orange continued to shrink on itself, first caving and then flattening, as the sphere of juice grew to little smaller than the original orange. "How did you do that!?" Rangiku exclaimed.

"All in good time. All in good time. Now, Rangiku, you told me that sometimes you get hungry. This is what hunger is. When the spirit particles leak out of your body, you weaken. If you lose too many, like this orange, you die. Oh, your soul goes on, gets reborn in the material world, but you can't survive here without these spirit particles. When you eat, you're replenishing the spirit particles your soul governs. You could eat anything, really, and it would work just as well, but I doubt very much that you'd enjoy the taste of rooftiles or bilgewater."

Rangiku shuddered at the thought, yet a different point of the explanation had caught her attention now. "But wait, you're saying all people are like this? But that's not wh-" _But that's not what Gin told me_, she finished in her head. "But... most people don't get hungry, right?"

"Correct, my dear. Most people have a constant pressure of spirit particles. 'Reiatsu' is what we call it. The pressure of particles within them doesn't increase, doesn't decrease. It's stable. And very, very low. It doesn't take a lot of spirit particles to hold your body together. What the hunger is, is a sign you're out of balance. You're losing spirit particles relative to what you should have. You're leaking." Satoru tapped a finger on the desiccated orange.

"Now, the other side to the equation is this: if you're out of balance, it's for a reason. Usually, it means your soul naturally controls more spirit particles than just what it needs to make a body. Sometimes a little more, sometimes a lot more. So usually, when we talk about reiatsu, we talk about the amount of spirit particles your soul controls above and beyond what is expected for any human soul. For most men and women who have reiatsu - or reiatsu beyond what it takes to create a physical body anyway - this amount is small, and we say they have a small reiatsu. The pressure, the density of particles within them, is small. You on the other hand... You have spirit particles pouring off you in waves. Or you should, anyway. That little fox of yours is acting as some sort of block, I think. At the moment, it's sealing you off so you don't lose any more spirit particles than any other person. As long as it's around, no one can tell what a strong reiatsu you'd normally be broadcasting.

"When you came running by, though, I could feel you moving from three blocks away. Moving right for me, as it happened. I was about ready to abandon this place and get out of the district, until I saw that it was only you. But if I can feel you, then others can too. So it was necessary to bring you here. I do apologize for that, child. It wasn't my attention to scare you. When you started fighting me, though, you didn't leave me with much choice." The old man shrugged his shoulders and gave her a regretful grin.

All this talk of spirit particles and reiatsu had caught Rangiku's interest. She shook her head absently. "Okay. Whatever. I'm fine. Now what happens when you have more spirit particles than you need for your body?"

"Ahhh, that," Satoru said with a smile, "That part is my specialty. Now watch." The old man pulled the needle from the second orange, but this time juice began flowing from the still-floating sphere into the orange. There was far too much liquid in the sphere; the orange should have been swelling, bursting, as it absorbed that extra juice. Instead, it didn't seem to change at all. Finally, the last drop of juice vanished into the hole where the knitting needle had been, and the hole seemed to seal over of its own accord. With a smile, Satoru rolled the orange across the table to her. "There you go, girl. Peel that. Eat it."

Rangiku stared at the orange for a moment, considering. If it was filled with all the juice of that first, now-desiccated orange in addition to its own. It would probably explode the moment she tried to peel it. On the other hand, if it was filled with all that extra juice, it should have exploded long before now. Curiosity getting the better of her, Rangiku reached out and took the orange. She dug her rough fingernails into the rind, peeling it away.

What she found beneath the orange's skin was nothing like what she would have expected. It didn't burst. It didn't even leak. The fruit was still an orange, she was sure, but it looked... refined. The color of the fruit was richer than she had ever seen in an orange before. When she tried to pull off a slice, it felt solid and broke away easily, more like a lump of crystallized candy than a fruit. Putting the slice in her mouth, she found that the taste was enriched just as much, if not more. Rangiku couldn't keep a small moan from escaping her lips as she chewed on what seemed to be a perfect ideal of a slice of orange.

"Reiatsu works like that," Satoru continued. "When the density of spirit particles contained by a soul becomes higher, that soul goes through a refining process. Reiatsu makes your stronger, tougher, and faster. Maybe smarter, too, though I haven't really found a way to test that one. It also... Well, I said spirit particles leak off of people with a strong reiatsu. That can be controlled, as well, in a number of ways. Having a higher density of spirit particles lets you do things most people can't. That bit with the juice from the oranges, that was a very simple trick. You could probably do that yourself, if you knew enough to control the spirit particles flowing off of you."

A strange sensation filled Rangiku, something she had very seldom felt. It was a kind of lightness, a happiness. It took her a few moments to understand that the feeling was excitement. What the old man was talking about, that was part of her. He had said so himself, said she was strong in this reiatsu thing. Rangiku opened her mouth, on the point of asking him to tell her more, but Satoru cut her short.

"So, girl. That answers why I, shall we say, took an interest in you. Now you still haven't told me what you're doing here, so close to Seireitei, wearing clothes that are hardly better than rags and looking more feral than that fox that follows you around everywhere. Or why that fox is following you around in the first place."

Rangiku looked down at her clothes, noticing them again. They seemed so out of place, in this room full of fine things. She felt tears start to well up in her eyes, and fought them down violently. She would not cry, not for something silly like feeling alone and out of place. Rangiku found herself warming up to the man, though - especially after he showed her the first hints to a part of her life she had never before understood. She felt more willing to talk to the man, now. More willing to talk about some things, anyway. Gathering herself, she took a deep breath.

"It was after Gi- ...after my family died. I don't really understand what happened. Something... pulled me, out into the wasteland outside Rukongai. Something was calling for me. I don't remember very well. But I found a man, a very old man. Or, well... he found me, really. And somehow, I don't know... whatever was pulling me out there, he stopped it for me. He stopped me from going any farther into the wastelands. He had two foxes with him, too. Oboyi and... another one. I don't remember the name he gave the other one, though. He had Oboyi bring me back to Rukongai. That was just after when my family died. I've been with Oboyi ever since. But... Oboyi doesn't really like people," somehow, she knew that to be true, "So we always stuck to the empty places. We avoided cities. I still don't know why Oboyi brought me to this one." Rangiku glanced down at the fox, and Oboyi returned her gaze. It looked... exasperated, was the only word Rangiku could think of to describe that expression. Was she missing something?

"Hmmm... Now that is a story. An old man with two foxes, you say? Did he give you a name? No, he wouldn't have, would he..." Satoru scratched his chin thoughtfully and spoke in a low voice, as if for his own ears. "Been a long time since I've heard anything about him, and even then it was never more than rumors. A very, very long time. Hmmm."

Rangiku's eyes widened in surprise. "Do you... do you know him? The old man?"

Satoru came to himself again with a start, apparently surprised Rangiku had heard. "What? Oh, no, girl, of course not. Don't know anything about him. What has me curious though, and maybe you can tell me, have you ever heard of a man named Terada Yusuke? Used to be a friend of mine. Last I heard, he had worked his way down to your 79th District, but that was a few years ago. Haven't heard from him in a while. Any chance you might know of him, girl?"

Rangiku shook her head. "No, I don't think I ever met him. We... my family and I, we didn't live in the district town. We didn't have a lot of contact with anyone, except when we visited the town to sell clothes or buy food, or... Terada Yusuke?" The name felt familiar on Rangiku's lips for some reason, as if she had said it before. But no, she was sure she had never met the man. Why then that sense of remembering?

"Too much to hope for, I suppose," Satoru sighed. "I would have liked to know what happened to him. Some details, anyway. He was a good friend." The old man leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

Rangiku waited, her hands folded in her lap. The man must surely have more questions for her. Strangely, she found that she wanted to answer his questions now. At least, as long as she didn't have to talk about Gin. She wanted to know more about the things he had told her, and if that meant telling about her own life, she was willing to make that trade. So she waited, but the questions didn't come. Satoru sat silently, his eyes still closed, his head still turned up toward the ceiling. Rangiku began to fidget with her hands impatiently.

Finally, after what must have been minutes, one of the old man's eyes shot open and fixed her with a stare. "Oh. Yes. You. Well, Rangiku, what shall we do with you? I suppose you should be on your way. I've kept you long enough. Anyone who felt your reiatsu flare in the town should have given up their search by now, which means both you and I are safe. And as long as you're with Oboyi there, you shouldn't have to worry about anyone detecting you again. Just make sure you don't stray far from him. Not unless you learn to control that reiatsu yourself." Satoru placed his hands on the chair arms and pushed himself erect. "Now, if you'll follow me, I'll show you out and you can be back on your way."

"Wa.. wait," Rangiku said breathily. "Are.. are you sure they might not be looking, still? Wouldn't it be safer if I stayed here a little longer?" She still wasn't clear on who 'they' were, or what danger 'they' might pose, but Rangiku found that she didn't want to leave the old man's home. She still had questions, and... This place was finer than any place she had ever known, and the old man seemed so welcoming. Now that she had had a taste of it, she wasn't ready to go back to living in the wilds so soon. Unconsciously, she shot an apologetic glance at Oboyi.

"Oh, no, child. With that fox of yours, they couldn't tell you from a lump of clay anyway. It's perfectly safe. Now come, come. Speaking with you has already disrupted my schedule for the day. I need to get back to my work." Satoru began walking around the table toward her.

"But you still... I mean... But what if something happens to Oboyi, or what if there's some other way they can find me you haven't thought of, or..." She was rambling, she knew, trying to find some excuse to stay. "Maybe you're wrong? And maybe they're waiting for you, or... Maybe they know right where we are now..." Satoru stared at her with a blank expression, and the words continued pouring from her in a torrent. "And I want to know more! You haven't told me anything. You can't send me back out there. You have to teach me about this reiatsu thing. You have to show me how to use it. You said I could, I know you said it. Maybe if I learn how..." Maybe if she learned how to control these spirit particles, she would have something to live for. Something besides the memory of Gin. Tears of frustration began to roll down her cheeks, and she hated herself for them. "You can't send me away, damn you! You can't!"

Satoru regarded her for a few moments, his eyes suddenly cold and hard. "And why should I teach you anything, girl? What have you been besides rude and impertinent? I shared tea with you and you never even thanked me. Would I have that to look forward to, every day? How could you possibly repay me for the effort it would take to train you?"

Scrubbing the tears away fiercely, Rangiku glared at the man. Words sprang from her lips faster than she could think. "I don't care, I'll find a way. There has to be something. You said your work has something to do with these spirit particles, didn't you? I remember that. If I can control them, maybe I can help you with your work. Be some sort of assistant, or something."

"Be my assistant, Rangiku?" Satoru stroked his stubbly chin again. His expression was all sugar and honey again, and a knowing smile split his wide mouth in two. "Why, I thought you'd never ask!"


	11. Omake 2

Author's Note: _It's been a very long time, hasn't it? Well, here's my way of saying "I'm back on the case". I've done a little bit of rework on some of the earlier chapters to make them match up better with the new canon timeline revealed in the recent _Turn Back the Pendulum_ backstory arc in the manga. There may be a bit more rework in the near future as well._

_Other than that, things are full steam ahead. This is only one among my many writing projects (which include one piece of original fiction intended, eventually, for wide publication), so I can't promise to update on a consistent schedule. But for those with an interest, Pull Down the World is officially reactivated. Look forward to some more of Gin and Rangiku, coming soon to a monitor near you!_

_And for the moment, please enjoy a brief interlude with a character who will, shortly, become very important._

* * *

**Pull Down the World**

_Omake 2_

* * *

If there was one thing Aizen Sosuke hated, it was paperwork.

Aizen had plans. Big plans. And big plans took time: time to strategize, time to prepare, time to execute. But how was he supposed to find time for all these things when every waking moment seemed to be taken up with paperwork?

Captain Hirako poked his head into Aizen's office. "Hey, Sosuke! How's that requisition for new uniforms comin'?"

Aizen sighed, meeting his Captain's impatient gaze. "I don't know, Captain. I'll get to it once I've finished…" He thumbed through the documents on his desk. "The training reports for last week's hollow-hunting excursion; the transfer orders for Shimode Jiro, our fourteenth-seat; Captain Hikifune's request for a shunpo specialist to help her run training exercises with the Twelfth Division; the cost estimates for Captain Otoribashi's welcome party; the repair request for our division's auxiliary mess hall – the one you and Hiyori destroyed after you called her-"

"Okay, okay! You don't have to get all uptight about it, Sousuke. I just think our division could look a bit snazzier, is all."

Aizen returned his attention to the papers in front of him, dipping the nib of his pen in his inkpot. He scratched out a few more lines, finishing his description of the training exercises, and set the report aside to let the ink dry. As Aizen pulled out the personnel file on Shimode Jiro, he noticed a shadow fall across the desk and looked up again. Hirako Shinji was looming over him, his blank eyes trying to burrow into Aizen.

"Is there something else I can help you with, Captain?"

Hirako danced back a step. "Mmm? No, no, 'course not. Carry on, Sosuke." Turning on his heel, Aizen's captain attempted a dignified, graceful exit. It was only ruined when Hirako cast one more inquisitive glance over his shoulder from the doorway.

When he was sure his captain must be out of earshot, Aizen let out a long sigh. It had seemed like such a good idea, accepting Hirako Shinji's offer to make him a lieutenant. Captain Hirako was inherently suspicious of Aizen, sure he must be up to no good. The man could be quite blatant about his distrust at times. But Aizen had long ago learned to choose the enemy you know over the enemy you don't. Hirako's suspicion of Aizen had made the captain myopic, unable to recognize anything strange or sinister unless it could be laid at Aizen's feet. And, of course, Aizen's talents made it easy to manipulate other shinigami into doing all his work for him.

All his work, Aizen amended, except this paperwork.

But why couldn't they do his paperwork, too? Aizen tapped his chin thoughtfully as an idea occurred to him. Filing reports and filling out requisitions really wasn't difficult work. It fell to the division lieutenant, more often than not, just because it was the sort of work that required the signature of someone with some authority. But there was really no reason why a lesser-ranked individual couldn't do the work. A fourteenth-seat, say.

Aizen opened Shimode Jiro's personnel file and scanned through it quickly. Nothing to distinguish him from all the other mid-ranked shinigami in the Gotei Thirteen. No family to speak of. Only two documented friendships, and those with members of other divisions. No, Shimode would not be greatly missed.

Aizen lifted the transfer orders off the desk. He touched a corner of the paper to one of the candles illuminating his work, and the paper caught on fire. Aizen watched as flames rolled upwards, consuming the words of the transfer orders. He continued to hold the paper even as the flames boiled around his hand, but Aizen was careless of his own burning flesh. Pain was an illusion, and if there was one thing Aizen Sosuke understood, it was illusion.

With the burnt hand, Aizen opened one of the drawers of his desk and drew out a death certificate. He completed the form quickly, ignoring the stiffness in his fingers. The last blank on the certificate asked for the time of death. Aizen glanced at the clock hanging above the door to the office. 2:17 pm. Two and a half hours should be enough time to get everything in order. Jotting "4:47pm" in the final blank, Aizen laid the certificate on top of the now-dry training report.

Aizen stood and hurried from his office, pulling the door closed behind him. On his way out, he passed Captain Hirako's office. The door was shut and Aizen thought he could hear faint snoring sounds coming from within. Perfect.

He found Shimode Jiro training a team of new recruits in the practice yard. The young shinigami were engaged in kido drills, with Shimode providing nominal supervision. Most of the recruits knew the drills backwards and forwards, though, so Shimode was left to pace between them, occasionally providing little snippets of advice when one of the traineess did something wrong.

"Jiro," Aizen called, making his voice friendly. "Your transfer has been approved. You'll be leaving for Ninth Division tomorrow. I was wondering if you'd like to get one last drink with me to celebrate?"

The man, bald with close-set eyes, looked excitedly at his lieutenant. "Really, Sir? That would be wonderful!"

Aizen nodded and turned his attention to the trainees. "Recruits," he shouted. "Practice is suspended for the day! Go back to your quarters and get some rest!"

The trainees bowed to him, happy for the excuse to take a break. As they hurried away, Aizen turned back to Shimode, who was staring at Aizen as if seeing him for the first time. The sudden spark of loyalty in the man's eyes surprised Aizen – he hadn't realized before just how powerful kind words could be. Aizen made a point of remembering that fact.

"Well then, Shimode, shall we? There's a nice bar I know in South Rukongai, second district. It's only a little walk from the gate. So, what do you plan to do, now that you'll be working with Ninth Division?"

Shimode fell to answering the question at once, but Aizen tuned him out immediately. He waited until they were clear of Seireitei, clear of any seeing eyes, and then Aizen released Kyouka Suigetsu.

Hypnosis this strong, making Shimode imitate every one of Aizen's reactions and mannerisms, would probably cause irreparable damage. It was like writing over Shimode's personality with a weak copy of Aizen's own, in a way. But then again, what did the damage matter? As far as anyone else was concerned, Shimode Jiro had died in a freak hollow attack.

Aizen checked his watch.

At exactly 4:47pm.


	12. A Bowl of Tea

**

* * *

Pull Down the World**

_Chapter 7 – A Bowl of Tea_

* * *

Seireitei, the Court of Pure Souls, was a strange place. It was built like a maze - full of gargantuan homes and offices, long walkways, and screened-in gardens. Gin should have found it impossible to navigate after long years in the open wastes of Ishibana, the 79th District of West Rukongai. He was used to seeing for miles around him, knowing the lay of the land with a simple glance. Here in Seireitei, Gin was lucky if he could see further than ten meters. White brick walls rose everywhere he turned. There was so much shade here in Seireitei that he hardly ever needed to squint to keep out the blaze of sunlight. Of course he still did – force of habit, mostly.

Gin should have found Seireitei impossible to navigate. Its labyrinthine order was yet another bulwark against interlopers from Rukongai. How could anyone know these paths unless they'd grown up walking them every day? And yet it was another strange aspect of the Court of Pure Souls that made navigation as easy as finding sand in the desert.

Society was stratified in Seireitei. Oh, they were all alike in a way – snobbish, self-absorbed, and clueless. The residents of Seireitei had never faced the hardships of life in Rukongai. Wealthy merchants never squabbled over scraps of stale, crusty bread. Servants slept on comfortable beds, not patches of rocky ground. Nobles didn't know what it was like to take refuge in a cave to escape a dust storm. But for all the ways its residents might be alike, Seireitei was marked by deep divisions.

Gin had learned these divisions quickly as an Academy trainee. Lowerclassmen didn't associate with Upperclassmen. Students didn't associate with Teachers. And no one associated with the servants who kept the Academy clean and orderly, who cooked the meals and made the beds. Each group moved in its own world. Seireitei itself had proved little different on Gin's infrequent trips into the Court proper. Nobles lived in private enclaves, cut off from their neighbors. Merchants did their best to imitate the Nobles, building high walls around their estates. Even among the Shinigami, there were stark divisions. Either you were part of the Gotei Thirteen, or you weren't. And if you were, then you were fiercely loyal to your own division. Members of the Eleventh kept to themselves, because they thought they were better than all the other Shinigami. Members of the First kept to themselves, because they didn't want to be distracted from the daily business of running Seireitei. Members of the Fourth kept to themselves, because no other Division wanted anything to do with them.

There were hierarchies in Seireitei, and hierarchies within hierarchies. And Gin had learned that the easiest way to navigate in Seireitei was to ignore your eyes and use your ears. You could always tell where you were by listening to the conversations around you. Here, near one of the great estates, the talk was all about the scions of the Four Noble Families.

"Did you hear? The heir to Shiba refused a lieutenantship again! This must be the fourth time his Captain has asked him."

That had to be Kaien. Lots of talk about him lately.

"Is that Shihouin girl ever going to grow up? She's head of a whole division, now – AND Commander of the Special Forces. But she still acts like a teenager!"

That must be the Second Division Captain. Yoruichi? Gin thought that was her name. He was surprised at how often he heard her mentioned with disapproval.

"We're the power in this world, Boy. 'n you ain't nothin' but meat."

_What the Hell? _Gin spun, dropping into a fighting stance and searching for the source of the voice. His knuckles were white, curled around the hilt of the short zanpakutou belted at his waist. He scanned the crowd, searching for the familiar face. The face that couldn't be here. The face of a dead man.

"Hey! Aren't you Ichimaru Gin!?"

Damn it. Out of the corner of his eye, Gin saw a pair of boys approaching him, one tall and one short, both in the striped uniforms of the Academy. He straightened to face them and forced his grin into place, but his eyes continued scanning the crowd. "Aa, yea, s'pose I am."

"Oh, wow! I heard you're in the special advanced class! They say you're the most pr-"

_Damn you, Kaien. I never had to put up with this before._

Gin had taken the Shinigami's advice – reluctantly. He no longer tried to disguise his skill at the Academy. Gin had to admit that there was a certain logic to it, beyond even what Kaien had suggested. Notoriety carried its own protection. Utagawa had certainly heard his name by now. Perhaps the man even remembered the boy he had met in Rukongai, years ago. But Gin couldn't simply disappear, couldn't be disappeared, anymore. Too many people knew who he was.

And thanks to the social stratification in Seireitei, that meant every trainee in the Academy wanted to be his friend.

"-was amazing! I mean, I wasn't there to see it, but I heard all about it from Takumi. I mean, you and Shiba Kaien!?"

"Ain'cha done talkin' yet?"

The two trainees blinked, confused.

Gin eased his zanpakutou from its scabbard and began using it to pare down his fingernails. "An' here I thought I was gonna have a nice mornin' walk. Maybe jes' spend some time thinkin'. But no, you two had'ta come pester me, din'cha?"

The taller trainee opened his mouth angrily, and Gin's zanpakutou sliced through the air, inches from his nose.

"Oops. Guess my sword must'a slipped a li'l there." Gin waggled his free hand ostentatiously. "Sorry 'bout that. Din' mean to in'erupt ya. Weren'cha jes' about to say somethin'?" A broad smile curved across Gin's lips as he watched the two wannabe Shinigami.

"C'mon, Shouji." The shorter trainee grabbed the other one's sleeve and started tugging. "Let's get out of here."

The taller one, Shouji, brushed away his companion's hands. "Yeah. Sure. Whatever. You know, Ichimaru, you're a real-"

"Jerk? Yea, I like ta think so, too," Gin laughed. He propped the back of the zanpakuto against his shoulder, and continued smiling at the other trainees.

The short one tugged at Shouji's sleeve again, and with one last glance at Gin, they both slipped back into the flow of traffic through Seireitei's streets.

Gin scanned the crowd one more time, looking for the face of the man he knew couldn't be there. When he was satisfied, he slipped his small zanpakutou back into its sheath and continued on his way.

It wasn't long before Gin found what he was looking for. Towering white walls stretched to either side of a thick wooden gate, emblazoned with a hexagonal crest that reminded him of a squid. Unlike many of the walled compounds he had passed, this one had no guards stationed in front of the gate. Perhaps there was no need. Even Gin had learned enough of Seireitei to know that few people would come here uninvited.

The door was heavy, but Gin had little trouble pushing it open. As he slipped inside, his eyes met an unexpected scene. Outside these walls, Seireitei was all white stones and mortar. Gin supposed it was built that way on purpose. Rukongai was always dusty and dirty. In contrast, the clean white of Seireitei blazed like the sun. Like so many other things, the paleness of Seireitei's architecture was a way to set those who lived inside its walls apart from those who lived without.

Inside these particular walls, however, there was hardly a speck of white to be seen. Trees grew all around, their tops cut just low enough to be invisible from the street. Creeping vines snaked across the inner surface of the walls, reaching all the way to the long peak of tiles that capped them. Ahead of Gin, a wide path of cobbled stones snaked off into the distance, but except for that everything here was green and growing.

Not seeing any sort of escort, Gin shut the gate behind him and strolled forward along the path. He refused to hurry, instead allowing himself time to take in the greenery. It was beautiful, but Gin couldn't escape the sense of wrongness that accompanied its beauty.

The path wound back and forth through the trees, never cutting a direct path. Still, Gin saw nothing to indicate the presence of another soul in this garden. He must have walked nearly ten minutes before he found the first sign of civilization aside from the cobblestone walkway.

As Gin came around a bend in the path, a red wooden bridge arched up before him. Four tall polls spaced along each side supported polished brass lanterns. At the bridge's apex, a bench sat facing out over the…

Gin realized that he couldn't hear the sound of running water. Stepping around the bend in the walkway, he saw that the bridge spanned not a creek, but a ribbon of round gray stones that stretched through the garden in both directions.

Why would someone build a bridge over a bunch of rocks? For that matter, why would someone arrange a bunch of rocks into a band like that? It certainly wasn't another walking path. The stones were loose and uneven, and Gin had walked over enough loose, uneven stones in Rukongai to know that walking along this ribbon of rocks would be surprisingly painful, however smooth they might look.

The nagging sense of wrongness was stronger here, but Gin still couldn't put his finger on what was causing it. He decided to mount the bridge and take a better look at his surroundings. From the top, he let his eyes wander in both directions along the river of stones. It wasn't straight; rather the stones wandered through the garden as a real river would. Taking a seat on the bench, Gin found that he was facing back into the heart of Seireitei. The Central Court and the Execution Grounds rose above the treetops before him. In fact, from this bench he found the view both more beautiful and more disconcerting than it had been anywhere else in this garden.

Slowly, Gin realized what he found so unsettling about the garden. All the trees were carefully pruned to the same height, tall enough to obscure the walls from the inside, but not tall enough to be seen over the walls from the exterior. The undergrowth was green and thriving, even where the canopy looked thickest. There were no fallen branches, no dying trees. The garden was a construct of nature, and yet unnatural. It wasn't like the wilderness that could be found in parts of Rukongai. It was a sculpture, carved from living things.

"An' would'ja expect anythin' else? We control this world, Boy."

The voice whispered through the air behind him, and Gin leapt to his feet. His eyes scanned the garden frantically, and he thought he saw a flash of movement along the edge of the river of stones, a lone figure slipping back into the trees. Gin put his hand on the rail of the bridge and tensed his legs to vault over.

"Ichimaru Gin? My apologies. I did not think you'd be here so soon."

Gin's head whipped toward the sound of the voice. A white-haired man in a pale scarf and a sleeveless white coat stood on the path below the bridge, staring up at him. "Aah," he forced himself to laugh. "Was jes' admirin' the view ya got here."

The old man nodded his head in greeting. "Welcome to the Kuchiki household. I am Kuchiki Ginrei, Captain of the Sixth Division of the Gotei Thirteen. You did not have any trouble finding our compound, I hope? You found someone willing to offer you directions?"

"Nah, din' need 'em. Ain't hard to find, long as ya know how to look." Gin turned away from the rail and walked to meet the old man, putting his grin back into place.

The Shinigami Captain blinked. He paused for a moment before speaking again. "That is good to hear. I apologize I could not meet you at my Division's headquarters, but my presence is required here at the estate later today. Now, if you will please follow me." Although it was a request, Gin heard the tones of command in Kuchiki's voice.

They walked along the cobbled path for no more than a minute, the old man a pace ahead of Gin. Then abruptly, Kuchiki turned to the left as if he was about to leave the walkway. Gin turned with him and was shocked to discover a smaller path leading between the trees. He would have sworn no such path existed only moments before.

"I din' know there was another path here. Did'ja… y'know, do somethin' back there?" A part of Gin still resisted making conversation with men like this, but sometimes a little politeness was necessary, however it grated. Gin was here by invitation, and Kuchiki Ginrei was not a man to insult lightly.

Without breaking stride, the old man turned and gave Gin a grizzled smile. "No need. The path isn't hard to find, as long as you know how to look."

Ahead of them, the ground dipped and opened into a clearing. A squat wooden building stood in its center – unpainted and unadorned, but with a beautiful geometry that named the mastery of its builder. Kuchiki led Gin down into the depression and paused at the building, sliding open a slightly-elevated door and motioning for Gin to enter.

Gin bent forward and poked his head inside. The interior of the building was small, able to hold six people at most. An alcove was recessed into the far wall, and it held a long canvas scroll unrolled to reveal a brush-painting of a mist-shrouded lake. The center of the room's floor was recessed as well, and Gin could see that a large cast-iron vessel rested within.

Gin pulled his zanpakuto from his belt and untied his sandals, leaving both outside. He slipped into the room and kneeled facing the black iron vessel. A few moments later, another door slid open on the wall across from Gin. The old man stepped inside, carrying a lacquer tray that held three bowls and a number of objects Gin didn't recognize. With an air of ceremony, Kuchiki sunk to his knees opposite Gin.

"Will you share some tea with me?"

_Ahhh._ So that's what this was all about – tea. Gin had heard that among the nobles, there was a right way and a wrong way to drink tea. Of course, he didn't have the faintest idea what the right way was. But, he supposed, that was a puzzle to be unlocked like any other. If Gin had to associate with this man Kuchiki at all – and he really couldn't refuse a Captain of a Gotei Division – at least he could take a little pleasure in the meeting by finding a puzzle to solve. Gin couldn't help chuckling at the thought. When the old man fixed him with a stare, Gin bowed his head in feigned humility. "Sure, Ser, if ya'd like."

The old man began by placing a piece of yatsuhashi – red bean paste folded into a thin sheet of riceflower cake – onto a small sheet of paper. In silence, he slid the paper to Gin and placed a small knifelike wedge of bamboo to the side. Gin bowed and murmured his thanks, trying to recall the sorts of words he'd heard other Academy trainees use from time to time in the mess hall.

Kuchiki began to focus on preparing the tea, which Gin took as a sign that he should eat. With the small bamboo knife, he cut the yatsuhashi into a few bite-sized pieces. Gin enjoyed the sweet taste of the little treat, although it lacked the more enjoyable sweetness of the fruits he remembered having in Rukongai. Much of the food in Seireitei was like this – good, but with understated flavors relative to what he had known before.

As he finished the yatsuhashi, Gin turned his attention back to his host. The old man had removed the cast-iron vessel from the recession in the floor, and he was now lighting a coal fire in that space. Gin sat quietly, watching as Kuchiki replaced the vessel on the now-warming bed of coals. Kuchiki moved with a delicate deliberation, but Gin immediately found himself confused by some of what he saw.

Kuchiki's actions were all very direct, not wasting any motion. The old man didn't spill a drop as he ladled water from one of the bowls into the cast-iron pot. When he used an odd stick of curved bamboo to scoop green powder from a small jar into the two remaining bowls, he measured out six portions for each bowl – all of them filled to precisely the same height. But if his actions were so purposeful, why had he taken the time to turn the bowls and jar toward Gin before using them?

As the water was heated, a breeze blew through the little room. It mingled the scent of the trees outside with the bittersweet smell of the tea powder. Gin took another look at the bowls and the jar the old man had used, now sitting on the floor beside the lacquer tray. They were each painted to show a different tree branch with blooming cherry blossoms. Gin cocked his head and noticed that the designs simplified further around the sides of the bowls and jar. He must have been staring at the center of those designs, the point where they were richest in detail. So that was purpose behind turning them – to set the designs so he could best see them.

The water was beginning to hiss in the iron vessel now, and Gin returned his focus to the old man. Kuchiki was still moving with the same practiced grace, but Gin saw now that the old man was making a special effort to look at everything he did. As he moved steaming water from the vessel into the two bowls with tea powder, Kuchiki kept his eyes fixed on the head of the ladle. As he carefully laid the ladle beside the recessed space in the floor, as he took a short bamboo whisk from the lacquer tray, as he mixed the tea in the bowls – no matter what he did, the old man's eyes stayed glued to what he was doing. They didn't wander for even a moment. Kuchiki's hands looked strong and steady, so Gin didn't believe the old man's attention was entirely necessary for what he was doing. There must be a special significance to the visual focus on the elements of the ceremony as well.

As he finished, the old man set the whisk aside and placed one of the two tea bowls in front of Gin. Then, he took his own bowl and watched Gin expectantly.

Gin bowed, again murmuring words of thanks and acceptance. He bent his head forward to examine the bowl, and lifted it gently with both hands. Then, balancing the bowl on the palm of his right hand and gripping the edge with his left, he turned the bowl until the old man could see the center of the cherry blossom pattern. Gin found a small mark, a single five-petaled blossom, on the side of the bowl opposite the branch. His mouth twitched into a small smile. A marking on the reverse side suggested that he'd been right in assuming that the bowl was meant to be turned to face a certain way. Satisfied, he raised the bowl to his lips.

The tea was hot and thick, and surprisingly sweet. Gin had never tasted tea like this before, but he found that he liked it. A part of his conscience rebelled at the thought. _No. I can't let myself start to enjoy this sort of life. These people are the ones who turned Rukongai into the Hell that it is. The farther you are from Seireitei, the farther you are from civilization. How can I fix the system if I don't even reject it myself?_ In two more sips, Gin drained the last of the tea from the bowl. He replaced it on the floor and inspected it briefly. Then, Gin gripped the rim in his left hand and spun it until the bowl was just the way he'd found it.

The old man was finishing his own tea. His eyes twinkled and the corner of his mouth twitched as he watched Gin turn the bowl. Gin wondered if he had been wrong to turn it back. But with the level of detail that appeared to go into making tea…. No, it made more sense to return everything to the way he found it.

Solemnly, Kuchiki placed his bowl back on the floor and regarded it for a few seconds. Then he took Gin's bowl, placed it next to his own, and began cleaning them. The old man was the first to break the silence. "Are you aware, Ichimaru Gin, that you drink tea in exactly the same way as my grandson? Byakuya also uses his left hand to turn the bowl."

Gin gave the old man his biggest grin. "Ain' that right? Can't say as I know, one way or th'other. Never drank tea like that before."

"I thought as much," the old man nodded. "Far from perfect," he sighed, "But then so is Byakuya. He lacks the patience for it, I think. But for you to guess so well at the proper forms? No wonder Genryuusai asked me to meet with you."

"Genryuusai?" The name tickled at Gin's memory, although he wasn't sure why.

"Yamamoto Genryuusai Shigekuni, the Captain-General and commander of the First Division. Also, the founder of the Central Reijutsu Academy."

"Aaaah," Gin responded dully. He had only the vaguest memory of the man, though he had surely seen him when he entered the Academy. An old man, with long white hair, hunched over a thick walking cane. Could that man really be the head of the Gotei Thirteen?

"Given your progress and the reports of your instructors, Genryuusai has suggested that you be tested for admission into the Gotei Thirteen at the end of the year. The Captain General doesn't believe there's any reason for you to continue with the Academy training. From the little I've seen, I'm inclined to agree with that assessment."

Gin felt the warm glow of pride fill him. Whether or not he wanted to be part of this world, he would need work within it for the moment. Moving from the Academy to the ranks of the Gotei Thirteen was a big step up the ladder of influence. He would never think of himself as a Shinigami, but if others thought of him that way, it would open new doors for him to explore. Maybe behind one of those doors he'd find the answers he sought. Maybe he'd find some way to pull down this unjust world the Shinigami had created.

The scuffle of feet outside announced the arrival of visitors. A woman glided in front of the open screen where Gin had entered the tea room, bowing from the waist. Her blue silk kimono was patterned with the same six-sided crest that had been embossed on the gates leading into this estate. As she straightened, she addressed her words to Captain Kuchiki. "My Lord, Lieutenant Aizen of the Fifth Division is here with a message from Hirako Shinji."

"Then please allow him to enter, Mariko."

The woman bowed again and stepped back, motioning to another person whom Gin couldn't see. As the woman moved away, a Shinigami took her place. He wore the shihakusho, the traditional black-and-white uniform of a Shinigami. In addition a band encircled his arm, supporting an emblem that bore the insignia of the Fifth Division – four hanging lilies. He was bald with sunken cheeks, and his eyes were close-set above a wide nose and a gash-like mouth.

"It's been a while, Sosuke," the old man said warmly. "What brings you out here today? Does Captain Hirako want to use the Sixth Division training grounds again?"

A smile touched Aizen's thin mouth for a moment. "Ah, no Sir. Though he's still complaining about our renovations every day. With luck, Division Five's new headquarters will be done in the next few weeks. But I'm sure it would make him very happy if you offered him a place to practice. He gets… restless." Aizen smiled again, and pushed a finger up the bridge of his nose.

"Indeed he does," Kuchiki chuckled. "Well, Sosuke, if it's not our training grounds, what is it that the Fifth Division would ask of the Sixth?"

"Actually, Sir, Captain Hirako's request concerns you in your capacity as head of the Kuchiki family, not as Captain of the Sixth Division. Our renovations have prompted a small dispute from some of the lesser noble houses. We are adding two floors to the Central Dispatch building to handle the increased message traffic we've seen in the last few decades. We're stretched thin as it is, providing Hell Butterflies for all the administrative divisions in Seireitei. The added space should help considerably in meeting that demand."

The old man frowned slightly. "I don't understand how this concerns the lesser nobles."

Aizen ran a finger up the bridge of his nose again. "Well, it appears that some of the estates near the Fifth Division complex were purchased especially for the view they afforded of the inner court. The additional floors are seen as an eyesore by some of these nobles, and they've demanded that we don't renovate the Central Dispatch building. Unfortunately, they only made this demand yesterday. A few months ago, we might have been able to revise the building plans, but now the new Central Dispatch is almost done. All that's left is installing the roof tiles. If we have to tear the whole thing down and start over again, it will be months before we finish."

"I agree," Kuchiki nodded. "They are being unreasonable. I assume Captain Hirako would like me to speak with them?"

Aizen sighed in relief. "Yes, sir. It would be a huge relief to us." Again, he pushed his finger up the bridge of his nose.

Something about that gesture bothered Gin. It almost looked like the man was adjusting his glasses – except that this man didn't wear glasses. Suspiciously, Gin opened his senses and felt for the resonance of reiatsu – the Gift. He was aware of his own Gift, of course. He could feel the reiatsu of Captain Kuchiki as well, like a tightly-coiled spring. In fact, Gin's Gift had developed enough that he was able to feel the presence of a number of other souls within the Kuchiki estate as well. One, still close but moving away, was probably the servant Mariko. Another soul, more distant, seethed with power and unrestrained force. When he focused his attention on Aizen, however, Gin didn't fully understand the resonance he felt.

A lieutenant should be the second-strongest member of his division, but Gin was sure that his own reiatsu dwarfed this man's. And yet, Gin could feel the echoes of a larger reiatsu here. It wasn't like Kuchiki, who was keeping his reiatsu tightly restrained. This felt more like an empty shell of some sort.

Without warning, the shell seemed to flicker into Gin's sight, like a crimson aura around the lieutenant. He blinked in surprise, and was vaguely aware that Aizen and the old man were continuing to talk. Gin had always felt the Gift in others as a resonance, like an echo of something he couldn't quite describe within himself. This was the first time the Gift had ever manifested visually for him. Unconsciously, he stretched out his hand to touch the shell surrounding Aizen.

"Ichimaru? Was there something you wanted to say?"

The old man's voice brought Gin's head around, and he dropped his hand immediately. Gin looked up at the Lieutenant again, cocking his head to the side. "Was jes' wonderin' if yer glasses were botherin' you today, L'tenant?"

Aizen rubbed his finger up the bridge of his nose again and smiled. "Oh, no. They always slip a little."

Gin glanced at the old man. No sign of confusion there. He looked back to the lieutenant and grinned broadly. "Ain't the only thing that slips a li'l. Aah, Cap'n Kuchiki, looks like the two o' ya have some talkin' to do. I'd kinda like t' get back to my trainin', if that ain't a problem."

The old man nodded. "I will inform the Captain General that I concur with his assessment. In one month, at the end of this Academy session, you will be tested for entry into the Gotei Thirteen. Please think about which Division you might like to join. For my part, should you pass, I would be happy to accept you into the Sixth."

Gin rose to his feet smoothly. "I'll keep that in mind, Ser. An' thanks for the tea." As he slipped out the screen door, Gin let his reiatsu brush against the red shell surrounding the lieutenant. It felt like touching lightning. For an instant, Gin saw another man's image superimposed over the lieutenant – a thin man with glasses and shaggy brown hair. And then the image was gone, and the lieutenant's skull-like face turned to face him.

"S'cuse me, L'tenant. Cap'n." Gin retied his sandals and slid his zanpakuto into his belt. He climbed the path out of the clearing and returned to the wide garden path without looking back.

_Aizen Sosuke. Who are you, and what are you hiding?_


End file.
